


Two Faced Love

by orphan_account



Category: KISS (US Band)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-06
Updated: 2020-06-09
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:21:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 31,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23041669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: On a drunken and stupid night, you are your friends during a stormy night decided to play with an Ouija Board, not knowing what you had unleashed onto yourself. A controlling, manipulative, and evil being that would have you questioning everything you ever thought that you knew.
Relationships: paul stanley x reader
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	1. Chapter 1

Lightning flared across the dark, raging sky over Los Angeles. The wind was blowing and whining through every tight space. The rain was coming down horizontally, pelting the stained window of an intriguing dark green house on Silver Street. Inside that house were three best friends, taking refuge around a warm fireplace, which happened to be their only light source after the storm knocked out the power. You stared bluntly out the stained window and watching as leaves and various other debris flew and tumbled down your street.  
"The rain's really coming down," You noted, letting the blind fall back into place. You heaved a sigh. "Of course it storms on the day I actually had plans."  
"Hey, if you ask me, this Mike guy missed out on a perfect opportunity to comfort and cuddle you in front of a fireplace during a spooky storm," One of your girls piped up, warming her hands in front of the flames. "He's a dunce and not worth your time."  
"You say that about every guy I date."  
"Are you even dating him yet, Y/n? I mean, you technically had to cancel your first official date, so where does that leave you?" The third girl asked, snuggling into a tighter ball under a fleece blanket in the corner of the couch that the girls had pushed over to face the fire.  
"In limbo," You sighed again, plopping herself down onto the couch. "I can't even text or call him because there's no cell service. The storm's screwing with the tower."  
"Maybe you should take this storm as a sign to move on,"  
You glared down at her friend, who was huddled close to the fire.  
"Merida," she warned.  
Merida shrugged and turned away, muttering "just saying" under her breath.  
"I don't understand what your problem with him is," You argued. "I mean, he's a nice guy! You've barely given him a chance."  
"He's a nice guy to you because he wants to get you in bed," Meridah replied firmly. "He's not a nice guy in general. He and his jock friends are public enemy number one to everybody in this town. Just ask Rose, she'll tell you the truth. Rose?"  
The other girl on the couch shook her head defiantly.  
"Nope, no way am I getting involved in this one. Why don't we get our minds off of it and play a board game or cards or something? If I have to be trapped in a house with arguing girls I'm going to die."  
"That's a great idea, actually," Meridah agreed, standing up from the fireplace. "Y/n, you keep your board games in the hallway closet, right?"  
"Yeah, top-shelf. There are tons there; they were all my mom's at one time or another. Just pick whatever you want. Here, take this candle with you."  
You handed your friend a candle for light and Meridah bravely trekked into the dark shadows of the tiny house to choose a game.  
"Ugh, I hate storms," Rose muttered, hiding half of her face behind the blanket.   
"I know what you mean," you murmured, fidgeting with her pant leg.  
"Y/n! Oh my god, y/n!" Merida’s voice shocked the two girls a little, causing them to jump.  
Merida came skidding into the living room, nearly sliding right into the arm of the couch. Her frizzy pale blonde hair was sticking out everywhere in a mass of curls and her blue eyes were wide behind navy glasses as she stared at the box she was holding. Rose tilted her auburn head back to read the back of the box.  
"Ouija: The Mystifying Oracle," she read. "Oh, no way in hell am I playing that. You two knock yourselves out."  
"What?!" Merida snapped. "Don't be such a wuss! Are you kidding me? None of this stuff is real, Rose. It's just a game."  
"I don't care, I don't like them. My Nana always told me to never, ever touch one. They're bad, you guys. They open doorways for bad things to get through." Rose shook her head and snuggled under her blanket.  
"Ugh, whatever," Meridah rolled her eyes. "Are you playing at least, y/n? Why didn't you tell me you had an Ouija board?"  
You shrugged. "Honestly I don't know half the board games I own. I never play them. But yeah, I'll play with you. How does it work?"  
The girls sat beside one another and set the board on the floor in front of the fireplace. They put the wooden planchette in the center of the board and poured over the instructions. Rose didn't speak a word.  
"Seems pretty basic to me," Merida said, tossing the paper instructions on the ground. "What if we contact a ghost, y/n? Are you gonna scream and cry like a little girl?"  
You smirked. "There's no such thing as ghosts. These boards are based on involuntary muscle movements anyway. I can't believe you don't wanna play, Rose. It's not a big deal."  
"To me, it's a big deal," Rose muttered. "Just play the stupid thing but leave me out of it."  
You shrugged. "Okay, so we put our fingers on the thing like this?"  
"Yeah, and we move it around in three circles and then we just barely touch it. One, two, three…ask a question, Y/n."  
"Why do I have to ask?"  
"Because I told you to ask."  
"Yeah, because that's a valid reason—"  
"Ugh, is there anybody here with us right now?" The room fell dead silent at Merida's sudden question. As is expected when trying to contact the dead, a spooky sort of suspense settled on the girls' shoulders.  
The planchette didn't move an inch.  
"What's your name?" Merida asked.  
You had been biting your lip with anxiety, suddenly opened your mouth.  
"Do you know our names?" You asked.  
Rose whined behind them.  
Suddenly the triangle-shaped planchette began to shift and twitch in the center of the board. The color momentarily drained out of all the girls' faces. It began to slide towards the lower right half of the board.  
"A-are you…?" Merida breathed.  
You shook her head. "Nope…"  
The planchette began to move more erratically and with more speed. In the circular glass window near its top, the letters appeared in quick succession, spelling out your name. The girls didn't even get to read them out as it landed on them.  
"Oh my fucking god, Y/n," Meridah whispered.  
"What do I do…?" You asked, stunned.  
"Ask more questions! Obviously it—or they—want to talk to you."  
"Oh, um…who are you?" she asked.  
The planchette ominously shifted back to the P and stayed there. The girls moved it back to the center of the board after a moment.  
"P, okay…that didn't answer much," you breathed nervously. "Um, do you know me?"  
If shifted to YES.  
Merida’s face scrunched up. "Who are you then? Who's P?"  
"I don't know," You shrugged. "Maybe it wanted to spell my name again and just went to stop before?."  
"This is really weird. I swear I'm not moving it! Ask it something else."  
"What are you doing here?" You asked.  
The planchette slid across to several letters, this time letting the girls call them out as it landed on each one.  
"P, R, O, T, E, C, T," they said in unison.  
"Who are you protecting?" You asked eagerly. "What are you protecting them from?"  
The planchette didn't move an inch. Suddenly the candles that were on the coffee table and all around the couch went out all at once in a blur of wind and smoke. All the girls jumped and screamed. You released the planchette and jumped back, skittering into the edge of the couch. Merida hastily said goodbye and wiped the planchette across the words, not noticing that her friend didn't do the same thing, which was supposed to close off any connections they made with spirits.  
"Oh my god that was terrifying," You said, clutching her chest as her heart raced beneath her fingers.  
"Can you guys stop playing now?" Rose squeaked, now entirely hidden and shaking under the fleece blanket.  
"Yeah we're done we both said goodbye to whoever we were talking to," Merida confirmed.  
You froze and gave the blonde girl a look. "When did we say goodbye?"  
"Just now," Merida said. "I wiped the thing across the GOODBYE on the board and said it. You have to do that to seal off the 'portals' or whatever. Everyone playing has to do it for protection."  
"I didn't do it," You shook her head.  
"Y/n!" Rose exclaimed, pulling the blanket down a little. "You probably opened a doorway in your house!"  
You took a moment and then rolled her eyes.  
"Don't be stupid, Rose. You do realize how ridiculous that sounds, right? That's some Hollywood crap, really it is."  
"Oooh, the demon's gonna come out and get you, Y/n!" Merida giggled darkly, wiggling her fingers in your face. "You invited him in!"  
You playfully slapped her friend's fingers away. "First of all, if ghosts don't exist, demons sure as hell don't. You guys are nutcases, I swear."  
Merida laughed along with her friend and put a hand on her belly.  
"I'm kinda hungry," she announced. "What do you got that doesn't involve baking or cooking or microwaving?"  
"I think I have some Jell-O in the pantry," You smirked.  
"C'mon, you gotta have something!" Merida groaned. "I've just had a muffin all day."  
"Alright, c'mon guys we'll go see if I have anything," you stood up and stepped over the Ouija on the floor, grabbing a match from her pocket and re-lighting a candle to take. "We can play the game called 'who can close the fridge door fastest to conserve the freshness of my food in a power outage.'"  
"Sounds like a lot more fun than the dumb game you were playing before," Rose grumbled, finally getting up off the couch still wrapped in the blanket.  
"Oh, get over it, you crazy," Merida said. "It's just a game."  
"Then how do you explain the candles all going out, huh?"  
"I don't know; some breeze from outside must've gotten in somewhere. It was nothing."  
The three girls traipsed into the kitchen to hunt for food, forgetting all about the Ouija board still lying on the living room floor. The planchette sat in the center of the board at an eerie, disturbed-looking angle. What the girls didn't know was what they couldn't see: the Ouija board wasn't the only thing seated on that floor. There was a dark man sitting cross-legged on the opposite side of the board. His ringed fingers were lightly pressed on the pointy edge of the planchette, the opposite end from where the girls had been touching it. He was dressed in black pants and a thin black dress shirt that only generously showed his defined muscles and with tanned skin that was being drowned in the dancing shadow of the firelight. His hair was as black as the darkest corner of your house, and it was grown out long, stopping at his shoulders. Very slowly, he turned his face from the board game to follow the girls as they walked out. His eyes, the color of mahogany, were trained on your back: the one who had freed him. And then, in a blink of those same eyes, all color had vanished from them. He no longer had an iris or a pupil; it looked like his eyes were drowning in a deep black oil slick.  
Finally, someone slipped up and he was free. After centuries of trying to escape from hell, he finally had his chance. He just had one more step to complete before he could be completely whole again; no longer an invisible ghost, but entirely capable of walking amongst the humans and being mistaken for one. It gave him a perverse amount of pleasure knowing all he had to do was seduce or terrify the poor girl into giving him what he wanted. Soon he'd be able to seize the world once again, and you would help him do it.  
She'd forgotten to say goodbye and in doing so, she had unknowingly released hell on earth.


	2. Chapter 2

"Do you guys have enough blankets down here?" You asked, checking on your best friends one last time before they all went to bed for the night.  
"Yeah, y/n, we're good," Rose agreed, getting comfy on a spare mattress on the floor. "Thanks for letting us stay the night."  
"Well the other option was to send you out into that ridiculous storm and if you think I'd ever do that you're nuts," You smiled. "How about you, Mer? You good?"  
Meridah nodded from her makeshift bed on the couch.  
"Nice and comfy," she affirmed.  
"Alright, I'm off to bed then. Goodnight, you guys. I love you!" You said, waving at them as you climbed the stairs, candle in hand.  
"Goodnight, y/n! Love you!" The two girls said in unison.  
You climbed the dark, narrow staircase into your upstairs level, which admittedly was just a hallway, a bedroom, a bathroom, and a couple closets. Your house was small but it was quirky and it had character and that's what you loved about it. You'd been renting it for about two years, and the man you were renting it from was always saying how he was just going to sell it to you someday for dirt cheap because he didn't want to have to worry about it anymore. You kept telling him you'd love that, but he had yet to sell you the house. You were patient though, and didn't mind paying cheap rent for the time being.  
You wandered into your room and peeled back your quilt and blankets on your bed, grabbing your pajamas. You traded your blue jeans for baggy pink and white pajama pants, your white top for an old shirt. You set the candle down on top of your dresser, looking at your reflection in your mirror as you wiped off your makeup, and brushed your wavy hair which quickly gained volume from the procedure. You looked at yourself for a minute as the shadows of the flame danced across your features and you shivered. It looked creepy.  
You blew out the candle and shuffled off to your bed. You never realized how tired you felt until you were totally ready for bed and then it would hit you like a ton of bricks. You liked that though because it allowed you to fall asleep straight away. That night, however, came with minor tossing and turning, despite how tired you were. You couldn't shake the feeling that you had forgotten about something somewhere, and for a split second you felt as though you was being watched. When you sat up in your bed though, there was no one in your room but you. So, with that in mind, you nestled down amongst your pillows and blankets and listened to the rain and wind outside until it eventually relaxed you back into a troubled slumber.  
Normally when you dreamt, you were in some faraway magical land with a famous husband and hundreds of thousands of dollars at your fingertips. You were always very vain and selfish in your dreams, almost the exact opposite from how you were in reality. That's what you liked about dreams, though: you could be anyone you could think of, anywhere in the world, and no one would know but you, that is if you remembered it in the morning. There was something magical about that and about dreams in general.  
On that particular night, however, your dreams were something you’d never experienced before. One minute you were sipping from the most expensive wine bottle in the world staring up into the starriest Paris night sky to ever exist, and the next you were hurtling painlessly up into those same stars you'd just been gazing at. You didn't scream or twitch and wake up, nor did you feel your insides shifting uncomfortably as one normally would when falling into nothingness. Maybe it was because it was only a dream, or maybe it was because you knew you weren't in danger.  
You landed perfectly on your feet, although you were in an entirely different setting. Everything was dark and abandoned looking; you were in an evacuated city with gloomy black sky overhead and clusters of fire scattered around the ground. You felt painfully alone and confused. What had happened? It certainly wasn't the platform of high dining and romantic notions you'd been on before. Was it a nightmare? If so, when did the scary part come in?  
All along the charred, black street were remains of houses. Some were in better condition than others, and some were nothing but ashes of memories on the ground. Soot fell from the sky in floating chunks and you had to keep shaking them out of your hair. Seeing the ruin that lay out in front of you made you sad. Who had once lived on that street? It was a street just like your own, it was likely home to people just like you, and it was reduced to nothing. Could those people have been friends of yours? Their lives were gone, and to make it worse, so were their memories. Perhaps the house that was reduced to a pile of dust with nothing left standing except for half the fireplace was once your charming little home. Now, there was nothing.  
One house at the very end of the street was still entirely intact, if a little charred on the outside. There was a flickering light on in the house and you wondered if it was leftover fire or an intentional one on the end of a wick. The way it was flickering didn't look prominent enough to be a large flame, so you held your hope that it was a candle and someone was inside. Maybe they could tell you what had happened all around them.  
You walked up the soot covered pathway to the house very quietly, making sure to keep yourself out of sight of the windows. Carefully, you pressed yourself up against the outside of the house, by the door. It was open just a little bit, and you were relieved to first see candles set up all along the ground and then a quivering shadow in the corner. It was tall and large, but for some reason you didn't feel a hint of fear. It was actually a person who may be able to help you!  
You pushed the door open slowly, wishing to sneak in if you could, but it squeaked and cracked under your force. Still, the towering figure in the corner didn't move. You felt confused, but still did not fear it. You stepped inside and took very precise steps in case the floor was weak. You managed to get fairly close to the breathing, dark figure. He was facing the corner of the room, showing you only his back.You could see his black hair crawling down the back of his neck. You stood there analyzing his back and he didn't say one word for the longest time until you began taking another step towards him.  
"Are you scared?"  
You froze, one leg extended slightly in front of your body in the step you hadn't taken yet. You stared at the centre of his back, expecting him to turn around and face you. When he didn't, a tiny bit of fear trickled into your lungs and froze them over. You wondered what he was keeping from you. Was he horribly disfigured? Was he going to jump out and scare you awake? Who was he?  
"Are you scared?" he asked again, a little louder that time. His voice was gravelly and extremely dark.  
You swallowed and took a soft step back, hoping to sneak out the door unnoticed.  
"Should I be?" you asked.  
He nodded slowly.  
"Well I'm not," you said, although you were still walking towards the door. "There's nothing to be afraid of here, it's my dream."  
"You're half right," he said ominously. "You're not going to get hurt, at least. But this isn't your dream."  
"What? I'm sleeping, how is this not my dream?" you said, narrowing your eyes.  
He finally turned around to look at you. Standing straight, he had to be 6' at least. His presence was something the likes of which you had never encountered, not even in your dream world. Not only was he impossibly beautiful and dark, but the energy he gave off was palpable. You could practically feel it getting into your head and making it feel fuzzy. He gave you a crooked smile, his shadowed brown eyes narrowing only slightly. As frightening as he was, he was perhaps the most handsome man you had ever seen.  
"I'm giving you this dream," he explained. "I'm in your head."  
You shook your head, trying desperately to distract yourself from his dominating presence. You were so confused.  
"Who are you?" you asked.  
He smiled again and it was a while before he answered. For a moment you wondered if he was going to try and pull the mysterious card and leave his name a secret, in which case you would've pinched yourself repeatedly until you woke up. You didn't have time for that and the "dream" was quickly turning into a nightmare.  
"You can call me Paul," he said.  
"Why are you here? I mean, why are you talking to me?" You asked, still confused.  
"Because I need your help, y/n," he said. "I need you to release me."  
You furrowed your eyebrows. "Okay, this has to be a dream because I have no clue what you're talking about."  
"You freed me from that board," Paul said, disregarding your comment.  
"W-what?"  
"The Ouija board, you freed me from it. You forgot to say goodbye to me, so I was freed. The only problem is I'm just a ghost right now and only you can see me. So until you free me, I'll be here, haunting your house during the day and your head every single night when you fall asleep." He said, stepping closer to you.  
"I don't believe you," You shook your head. "That was just a game; there's no such thing as ghosts."  
"Oh, really? Do you want to chance it? I'll warn you, I'm very powerful. For instance, right now we're in the fiery, ashy remains of a post-apocalyptic world, but in the blink of an eye…"  
He put his hand over your eyes for only a second and when he lifted it, they were in an entirely different scene.  
"…We could be in a beautiful meadow somewhere in the Midwest, listening to the animals talk."  
His voice was right next to youe ear and you jumped at the shock of sudden change. All the burning buildings and the fiery sky were gone, replaced by fluffy white clouds and tall, soft grass blowing in a gentle breeze around their legs. Deer were coming out of the trees in herds to feast on the crop and they didn't seem to notice you or Paul. It was like something out of Bambi. That was when you realized that you weren't dreaming, not exactly. If it were a dream, you'd hardly even notice the complete change of scenery, much less be afraid of it. It was as if you were entirely awake but trapped in a different dimension. Cold fear trickled down your spine and you turned to face him. He looked rather amused with himself.  
"I still don't understand," you said. "If you were freed from the stupid board then what else is there to do? What do you mean I have to release you? What am I releasing you from?"  
"It's a long story, I'm not sure you wanna—"  
"Yes, I do wanna," you interrupted. "Explain it to me, please."  
Paul sighed and plucked a long blade of grass from the ground by his feet. He slipped it between his fingers like a feather, twirling it in the air in front of his face.  
"I've been trapped in purgatory for a century and a half," he said. "In 1863 I was one of the many supernatural beings that roamed the New World, setting up governments and establishing law and order. I was fighting in the Civil War for the south when I was captured and held prisoner by the north. They were all mundane humans and when they learned that I was something above that, they were terrified. They tortured me with methods specific to my kind until they could get someone in who would banish me into purgatory. The only problem was, the guy they got to do it wasn't very skilled. He sent me away and although I was wounded and weak for a very long time, I was still able to talk to the living through séances, prophets, and eventually those little Ouija board games that sceptical women like to play when they're alone and in the dark."  
"What are you? A vampire?" You asked. You felt silly letting that word past your lips.  
Paul scoffed. "No, I'm not a vampire. A vampire wouldn't be half this cunning."  
"What are you then?"  
"I'm someone who is very grateful to you for freeing me. Now I need you to release me so I can come back to your side; the side of the living."  
"What would I have to do to release you?" You asked.  
"Well,"  
Paul walked in front of you, momentarily blocking your line of vision. When he was gone, they were back in your room. Again you were taken aback by the sudden change that you knew you hadn't created yourself. That was something way too far out of your realm of imagination.  
"In order to release someone, a.k.a me, from purgatory, you just have to do a little sacrificial ceremony…chant a few Latin incantations…"  
"Wait, sacrificial? Do I have to kill somebody?" Your eyes got wide.  
Paul smirked sadistically but shook his head. "No, unfortunately not. You do have to sacrifice a few drops of your blood, but that's a minor detail. I wouldn't worry about it."  
"What'd happen to me if I…" Your sentence collapsed and you dropped your gaze to the floor.  
"Oh, nothing," Paul said, tilting your chin up to look in your eyes. "No, nothing would happen to you. I give you my word."  
"Do you do bad things to people?" You asked. "I don't want to be a part of that."  
Paul narrowed his eyes and tilted his head. "What makes you think I do bad things to people?"  
"I just—I don't know."  
"Right, well, rest assured no one you care about will be harmed," he said with a quick smirk. He looked around your room, running his fingers along your bed sheets. "You've got a cute little room here. I think I might make it my room too, if you don't mind."  
"W-what do you mean?" You asked, stepping around to the side of the bed to face him.  
"Well I'm a ghost in your house now," Paul explained bluntly. "I haunt this place. And I think I could have a lot of fun congregating in my poltergeist activity here, don't you?"  
Your mouth fell open slightly. If everything happening around you was real, then Paul was being completely honest about haunting you. So it wasn't just the sudden realization that ghosts were in fact real that hit you hard, it was also the fact that you'd accidentally inherited a mysterious spirit of your own. You felt like you were going to be sick.  
"Oh, don't worry about it now darling," Paul cooed, gently putting his hands on your upper arms. "You only have to deal with my spirit until you agree to release me."  
He walked around behind you, gently pushing your hair to one side. His fingers were cool as they brushed the vulnerable skin on your neck and you shivered. Something wasn't right; you could feel it in his touch and in his presence. There was something dark in his eyes, something twisted in his smile. He was all wrong but you couldn't figure out why, or what exactly it was.  
His lips were by your ear and you could feel them on your skin, but his voice sounded like it was inside your head. It terrified you into a frozen state.  
"And I'll be right here, the staple to all of your dreams and nightmares until you release me. You'll see me tomorrow night, and the night after that, and the night after that, and the night after that…"  
His voice dissipated and you sat up straight in your bed, gasping for air. His lingering words were on a constant loop in your head. Despite how your logical thought told you that you were alone in your sun-brightened room, you had a strange feeling that you were anything but alone.


	3. Chapter 3

Shakily, you made your descent down the stairs into your kitchen. It was only eight in the morning, but the storm clouds had cleared and the sun was flooding in through your windows. You likely would've opted to sleep a little longer if your nightmare hadn't scared you half to death. You still couldn't figure out if it'd been just that, a nightmare, or if it was actually real. Could it really be possible that life after death existed? And furthermore, was it not actually impossible that a supernatural being could get inside of your head and influence your dreams? The more you thought about it the more uncomfortable you became and you just wanted a nice, warm distraction in the form of coffee.  
Rose and Merida were still sleeping peacefully in their makeshift beds. You stepped around them very carefully and as you did so you were struck by a small pang of jealousy. They didn't look like they were dreaming of an alluring mystery ghoul who promised to haunt your head and home for the rest of your life until you conducted some scary ritual for him. However, at the same time you were okay with it being only you who had the dream if it meant it kept your friends safe. But again you wondered if it was nothing more than a dream. You liked to keep telling yourself that's all it was, anyway.  
The gurgling noise of your coffee maker soothed your burnt out nerves a little as you popped some bread in her toaster. You were made aware of a creak in the floorboards behind her. You jumped a little, suddenly getting flashbacks of your nightmare, but when you spun around you were relieved to notice that it was only a sleepy Rose shuffling into the kitchen to join you.  
"Good morning," she squeaked right before a yawn. "I smelled coffee…"  
You smiled. "Yeah, I'm just making some now. You can have a cup and help yourself to whatever breakfast food you want. You know where it all is."  
"Of course, this isn't my first rodeo," Rose smiled, opening your fridge. "At least the storm passed, hey? I was afraid it was going to be raining and gross for a second day in a row."  
"Oh, I know," you breathed a sigh of relief. "Looks like life can return to normal for another day."  
"Yeah. Well thanks for letting us stay over. I know it was an impromptu sleepover, but it was fun nonetheless."  
"Any sleepover with you guys is fun for me, regardless of the reason," you replied. "The coffee's ready, by the way. Feel free to have some."  
"You are a god, y/n," Rose sang, "an absolute god."  
You winked at her overtop of your steaming coffee mug as you took a sip.You wandered over to your small table in the centre of the kitchen and took your seat to consume your small breakfast. You were chewing your third bite of toast when you thought you saw something out of the corner of your eye. Where you were sitting at the table the entryway into the kitchen from the living room was only visible in your peripherals.   
So, when you thought you saw a black mass move past the doorway left to right, you snapped your head in that direction. There was nothing in the doorway and nothing that would have made any kind of shadow. It couldn't have been the shadow of a car driving by on the street in front of the house. Fear weighed in your stomach. You suddenly didn't feel hungry anymore.  
"When do you think Merida will rise from the dead?" Rose asked, taking a seat opposite you at the table.  
"What did you say?" you whispered.  
"Hm? I asked you when you think Merida's going to wake up."  
"Oh," you looked down at your crumb-filled plate. "I don't know. Noon, if we're lucky."  
"Right," Rose chuckled.  
You nervously tapped the ceramic outside of your coffee mug with your fingernails. You were nearly bursting at the seams with anxiety and fear and wonder and you needed to let it out somehow. But would shy, sensitive Rose be able to handle it? Would she even believe what you were going to tell her? And if she did believe it, well, what then?  
"Hey, Rose, can I talk to you about something?" You asked tentatively. Your brain was still undecided but your lips were already moving.  
"Sure, what's up?" Rose asked as she spooned her cereal into her mouth.  
"I uh—okay listen, this is going to sound really weird," you clarified, bringing her voice down a few notches. "I mean it's going to sound bat shit crazy; totally mad. But I need you to trust me, okay? I need you to just hear me out because if I don't talk about it to someone I'm going to explode."  
"Okay…should I be worried? It sounds like I should be worried." Rose said as she gave you a suspicious look.  
"No—maybe, I don't know," you sighed. "Last night I had this dream; well, it wasn't really a dream, more of a nightmare, I think."  
"Alright, so what? Everyone has dreams and nightmares."  
"Yeah but this one was different. I think it had something to do with that stupid Ouija board. Actually, I know it had everything to do with that game. Except you were right, Rose; it's not just a game."  
Rose's eyes got wide and she was eerily quiet for a minute. You were mentally screaming at her to talk or give some form of acknowledgement. You couldn't tell by the look on Rose's face if she thought you were crazy or not and ultimately that was driving you up the wall.  
"What happened?" Rose finally uttered. "What happened in your dream, y/n?"  
"There was this man in my dream…a very dark man, dressed all in black with black hair and brown eyes. He said he was giving me the dream and that he was a spirit from the afterlife. Apparently when I didn't say goodbye on that board I freed him from it, or purgatory or something, and that now I have to release him if I want him to leave. It's so confusing and I don't understand—"  
"What does that mean? If you freed him from the board isn't he released?"  
The fact that Rose was listening that intently threw you off guard for a moment. You still couldn't decide if your friend thought you were crazy or not, but if Rose was asking thought-provoking questions then maybe the cards were in your favour.  
"Apparently not," You sighed. "I guess he's just freed from his confinement but in order for him to be more than just a ghost I have to do some sacrificial ritual with my blood. He said until I do that he'll haunt my every dream as well as my house."  
Rose's face was white as a sheet. For a second you wondered if Paul was behind her but you didn't dare look.  
"Well?" you urged. "Am I crazy or was it just a dream?"  
"I don't know," Rose replied quietly. "I've heard of people experiencing this kind of thing before but it's rare. I can ask my dad about it…he's schooled on exorcisms and all that stuff so he might know something useful."  
"An exorcism?" you exclaimed. "Rose, I'm not possessed!"  
"I'm not saying you are!" Rose argued. "All I'm saying is if this thing is asking you to perform a sacrificial ritual and if it was in some purgatory jail cell once upon a time I think it's pretty obvious that it's no good. You can't let him win, whoever he is."  
"He said his name was Paul," You sighed. "He said he'll haunt me forever if I don't! And what if it's just a bad dream and I made it up?"  
"My dad might be able to help with that. And I guess you won't know until things start happening, if they do. God I told you. I told you those things were no good. They open portals and now you know! You could have a whole host of supernatural entities roaming your house because of that." Rose shook her head.  
"Don't say that," you shuddered at the thought.  
"Well it's true! Just don't talk to him, y/n, whatever you do. Ignore him. Don't make contact."  
"But Rose, I think it's too la—"  
Their conversation was cut short by Merida entering the kitchen with her arms stretched above her head and her hair in a messy bun. Both Rose and you looked at her in momentary shock before trying to hide the lingering urgency of their conversation. You weren't sure if you wanted to tell outspoken Merida about your problem.   
"Mornin'," Merida yawned. She blinked at her friends. "Well, don't stop talking on my account, jeeze."  
"We weren't talking about you, don't worry," You smiled, deciding to brush it off with humour. "No offense but you're not really gossip worthy."  
"Good," Merida said. "Oh, you have coffee on! You know what I like, y/n."  
You and Rose exchanged a look of relief behind Meridah's back.  
"Well we've been friends for long enough now that if I didn't it might be a shame."  
"True that."  
The girls continued to talk about monotonous things over breakfast and several cups of coffee. It was nearly lunchtime when Rose and Merida decided to head home and check the storm damage in their yards. Merida had your front door open and was just about to walk through it when she realized her car keys were still on the couch. So, leaving the door open, she ran back to grab them and just as she was picking them up there was a loud bang from behind her and all three girls jumped and screamed. The door, which had previously been pulled open, had slammed shut on its own.  
"What the hell was that?!" Merida screeched.  
Rose and you stood petrified staring at the door they'd just watched shut on its own. No one spoke for what felt like an hour. You were too terrified to utter a word.  
"Did that door just…" Merida whispered finally, staring at the door like it was going to come to life and attack her. "Y/n…?"  
You shook your head slowly. "N-no…it was just the wind…"  
"How could it have been the wind?" Merida asked. "Your door opens inwards and there's barely a breeze outside right now…"  
"T-there's gotta be a window open somewhere in the house…it was the wind, it had to be." You said. Despite the fact that you knew there were no windows open in her house, it was all you could think to say. Your rational side was forcing her to believe it to be true.  
"Y/n…" Rose was looking at you like she'd grown a second head. You knew Rose was thinking the same thing you were: it'd been real. It wasn't just a dream.  
"It was just the wind," You repeated in a hollow voice. "You guys should get going. I'll text you both later."  
"Okay…have fun with whatever that was," Merida said quietly before she hesitantly opened the door and ran out.  
Rose turned to look at you in fear.  
"You need to get this thing out of your house. I'll ask my dad tonight and see what he says. Whatever is going on here, it wasn't just a dream."  
You just nodded and watched Rose leave you alone in your house that was freshly inhabited by someone else besides you. For a second you stood totally still by your small fireplace, too scared to move an inch. But when there were no sounds or shadows around you, you forced yourself to run up the stairs. You needed to shower. Maybe it'd take some of the edge off.  
The steamy water and fruity scents of your shampoo, conditioner and body wash did ease your mind a little. What have you done? You could've sworn the board was only a game, controlled by involuntary muscle movements in the hands of whoever was controlling the planchette. So how had you acquired a ghost? How was any life after death possible? Was it really true that all those crazies who believed in ghosts were right all along? It made you feel dizzy thinking about it. If ghosts were real, could they all do what Paul did? And if they couldn't, then what the hell was Paul?  
You heaved a great sigh and cut off the flow of water. You rang out your hair and was just about to open your shower door when something caught your eye. In the corner of your bathroom near the door you could just see a large, dark human figure through the frosted glass. It made you scream and stumble back into the shower wall, nearly slipping and falling down. Then, in the blink of an eye, it was gone, like it'd never been there in the first place. Very slowly you opened the shower door and peeked out of the crack. There was nothing you could see in the bathroom except for your foggy reflection in the mirror. You were alone.  
You grabbed your towel from the rack and wrapped it around yourself before stepping out. You felt vulnerable. What if he was still watching and you just couldn't see him anymore? Do you tell him to go away?   
You grabbed your laptop and shut the door to your bedroom. You actually found yourself locking the door and then thought, as if that's going to keep a spirit out, you idiot. You rolled your eyes at yourself but kept it locked nonetheless and sat in the centre of the bed, opening the laptop and plugging in to Google. You felt incredibly silly as you typed in the search bar. What kind of wacko even researches this stuff?!  
You stared at the words you'd typed in before you pressed enter. What to do if your house is haunted. You no longer denied it, at least. You knew there was a spirit in your home and you knew his name and what he looked like and how he talked, and it was all your fault. If only you had said goodbye in that stupid game you wouldn't have to worry about it. And the results that you found didn’t help in the matter. Most went warning about having no communication with the spirit.  
You had already communicated with the spirit—unwillingly, of course—and you didn't feel like you had a choice in that matter. If Paul could invade your unconscious mind how could you tell him to go away? Secondly, you didn't know if he was a good or bad spirit. You hadn't felt like you'd been in danger when he'd been so close to you in your dream, but then again you'd been dreaming and he'd been controlling it. Plus, Rose had a point when she said he couldn't be good if he was asking you to perform a sacrificial ritual with your blood. He'd had to do something far more horrible than he was letting on if he'd been trapped in that game. And to think he'd still be there if you'd said goodbye or if you'd never played the thing in the first place.  
You decided to give up researching. You felt it pretty obvious you weren't going to find anything useful and you feared if you read anything about salt circles that you might actually puke. So you opened your iTunes and put it on shuffle and then lied on your back and stared up at her ceiling. You shut your eyes and just listened to the music. If Paul thought he could get the best of you he was seriously wrong. That was your house, not his, and he was going to learn that one way or the other.  
You were just letting Freddie Mercury's voice relax you into a musically induced trance when you felt pressure on your ankles. Before you knew it you were being dragged downwards on your bed. You could feel what felt like hands creeping up your legs and the pressure transferred onto your upper thighs. For a moment, you were paralyzed. You couldn't move or even think. Once the pressure on your thighs began to move even farther up, your eyes snapped open and you screamed, finally jumping back and away from the hold. The pressure disappeared and you could hear your heartbeat over your music. You ripped her headphones out of her ears and started yelling, throwing all caution to the wind.  
"If you think scaring me is going to persuade me into helping you, you're wrong!" you screamed. "You know what? You can haunt me for the rest of my life, I don't care. You're not going to have a choice if you keep this up! Do you hear me? You won't scare me anymore!"  
"Is that so?"  
The voice froze you again. Very slowly, you turned towards the wooden chair in the corner of your room underneath a window. He was there; you could see him. How could you see him? Wasn't he supposed to be a ghost; invisible? Instead, he was sitting in your chair, plain as day, with his left ankle resting on the knee of his right leg and he was crouched forwards slightly with his elbow on his thigh and his chin in his palm. He was staring at you with an amused smirk on his tanned face and his eyes, instead of being the mahogany brown you'd seen the night before, were pure, oily black.  
"That's funny you should say that," he continued in a humorous tone, "Because you look pretty scared right about now, y/n."


	4. Chapter 4

He just sat there on your chair with a content, cocky smile on his face. Cold fear had gripped your throat and you couldn't find words. His eyes were the most frightening part about him. It's like there was nothing there at all; no pupils or irises. All they were was black. If eyes were windows to the soul, it was obvious at that point that Paul never had one to call his own.  
"What's the matter?" he asked, lifting his eyebrows. "Don't tell me the cat's got your tongue."  
"Y-your e-eyes…" you stammered.  
"Oh, right," He blinked and his eyes returned to that icy blue, leaving youe wondering if you had just imagined the whole thing. "Sorry. A guy spends so much time on the Other Side he forgets to keep up appearances."  
"But…" you shook her head. "How can I see you? Am I dreaming?"  
"You're not actually seeing me," he answered simply. "I'm just a ghost. As a matter of fact, I'm like a hallucination. You see, right now, I'm projecting my full image into your head like a slideshow. You're only seeing me here because I'm interfering with what you would normally see, which is an empty chair."  
"I don't understand…"  
"It's supernatural, y/n. I don't expect you to understand a single thing." He smirked.  
"What do you want?" you asked, frustrated tears welling up in her eyes. You never liked crying, and because of that you always did it. "Why did you scare my friends?"  
"Because you carelessly told your friends," he replied darkly. "Well, you told one of them. Rose, was it? You were practically asking me to do something. You're lucky; I could've done far worse than slam a door."  
"Leave them alone," you barked. "They have nothing to do with anything."  
"Exactly," Paul stood and a shadow seemed to drown the entire room. "Which is why you shouldn't have said a single word to her."  
You pursed her lips shut. You felt unreasonably cold all of the sudden. Paul's stare pierced her as he stepped closer very slowly, like a large cat stalking its prey in the wilderness. You felt vulnerable, weak, and scared. It was a terrible sensation.  
"You said you wouldn't be scared," he whispered. "Well. I want to see just how not scared you can be."  
"Why are you doing this? Please just leave me alone…"  
"I want you to help me. I don't want you to forget."  
"I won't, okay? I won't."  
"Oh, I know you won't. I won't let you."  
"You said you were going to protect me. Well? Who's going to protect me from you?" you blurted out.  
Paul stopped in his tracks. He narrowed his eyebrows slightly and tilted his head.  
"What?" he whispered.  
"In the Ouija board last night," you swallowed. "You spelled out the word protect. I'm assuming you mean protect me, since the only other results you produced had to do with me. So do your job and I'll do mine in due time."  
Paul chuckled in an almost menacing sort of way, but he seemed to stand down.  
"You're smart, y/n," he said. "There might be hope for you yet."  
You swallowed but didn't say anything. You kept her eyes on Paul at all times, just in case he tried something. But he didn't do anything, much to your surprise. He just stood there with this mysterious grin on his face, like he was admiring you for something while at the same time contemplating what your internal organs might taste like. It unnerved you almost as much as the silence that was suffocating you in the small room.  
"Why are you looking at me like that?" you asked quietly.  
"It's just funny," Paul mused. "Like I told you, I was a dark angel fighting for the greater good, to preserve humanity. That is, until I was wrongfully charged, blah, blah, blah. You know, I've been pulled from purgatory twice now.”  
You furrowed your eyebrows in confusion. The more you learned about your visitor the more frustrated you became. He really was something out of your realm of knowledge.  
"If you've been pulled out once before, how come you were put back?" you asked.  
"It's a long story," Paul shrugged. "I'd hate to bore you.”   
Something cold settled into your stomach, creating an unpleasant sensation that rippled across your entire body.   
He started to head for the door after that, without another word. You had never been so frustrated by a dead person before.  
"Where are you going?" you demanded. You had questions left unanswered; more so than ever before.  
"Well I can't leave this shack you call a house so I can guarantee you I'm not going far," he muttered begrudgingly.  
"That's it? You're just going to leave after all that?" You asked. "You're not very good at this whole haunting thing."  
"Mm, well pardon me while I go break some of your fine China and rearrange your kitchen appliances." He said, flippantly waving his arms in the air. "I'll leave you alone for the rest of the day. Just accept that; don't ask questions or I'll revoke it."  
"What about at night?" You asked quietly. "What then?"  
Paul gave a wistful smile that still managed to be as dark as the rest of him.  
"I made a promise to show up in your every dream," he said. "I won't break that so early in the game."  
"So that's what this is? A game?"  
Paul only stopped in your doorway and smirked at some twisted irony in his head before he disappeared before your eyes. Surprisingly, you weren’t shocked or afraid when it happened. You just groaned and put your headphones back on.  
\--  
It was nearly midnight when Paul rounded the corner into your darkened room. He leaned against your doorframe and stared at the shadowed mound that was you, lying underneath all of the blankets on the left side of the bed. You were sound asleep, and he was late. You'd probably been having a sleep riddled with anxiety, just waiting for him to pop up. But if he was being honest, he needed to work up to it.   
Nevertheless, he'd made a promise to haunt your dreams every night. He was so gloriously torturous sometimes. So he stepped into your room, around to the right side of your bed, and stood there for a moment just so he could watch youa little. He was no guardian angel keeping resilient watch over his precious human being, of course. No, he had an ulterior motive. He just wanted his freedom and regardless of how sorry for himself he was feeling he needed to do what he had to do to get it. Even if it meant corrupting the poor woman who lay sleeping a couple feet away from him.  
He settled himself onto your bed, lying on his back on the right side of the mattress. It wasn't the comfiest bed he'd been in, but then again he never slept so it didn't really matter. The pillow felt comforting on his weary head, though. He took a deep breath, allowing himself to regain his cocky composure, and turned his head to look at your slumbering face. Despite all the fear and confusion you were still able to sleep at night. He had to admire you for that. You were a resilient one.  
But he pushed those thoughts away and shut his eyes, transporting himself into your head. He needed to liven his mood up a bit, so he picked a particular scene that might just do it for him. When he opened his eyes, they were both still on a bed, although this one was cloaked in red satin sheets and had a sloping roof supported by four scratched posts. Seedy music played in the background somewhere, accompanied by loud voices and glasses clinking, all muffled by the four walls they were enclosed in. The floor was red shag carpet and the roof was black crushed velvet. You was dressed in a short, skin-tight sparkling red off-the-shoulder dress, with your hair and makeup done like a 1940's girl. He grinned at you as you opened her eyes.  
"What the hell…" you murmured as you became aware of your surroundings.  
"Hello there, kitten," Paul said.  
You jumped a little and sat up, turning your wide eyes on him. The dress glinted and sparkled in the dim lighting as your chest heaved with frantic breaths.  
"Where are we? Why are we in bed together?" you demanded.  
"Well," Paul put his hands behind his head and crossed his ankles. "We are in a very eclectic velvet room off the side of a shady building that typically hosts raves, college drinking fests, and the odd orgy. And if I had to guess as to why we're in bed together, well…" He tossed you a crooked grin and a wink.  
You gagged and hastily jumped out of the bed.  
"Why the hell would you take me here?" you asked. "I was enjoying a nice stroll down the streets of Venice with the Prince of Normandy and you rip me away from that to take me here?"  
"Yep," Paul said, sitting up and tapping his fingers against the inside of his thigh. "The Prince of Normandy, eh? You're really high-maintenance in that dream world of yours, aren't you?"  
"Shut up," you groaned. "Part of me was waiting for you to show up and ruin everything."  
"I know you were." He smirked.  
"Oh get over yourself," you snapped. "I have questions for you that I want answered."  
Paul gave you a hard glare and didn't speak for a moment. Part of him wanted to lash out and tell you to shut your mouth, but he knew he couldn't do that, not yet. So he promptly jumped out of the bed and started walking around it towards you. You backed up as he got closer until you backed into the wall and trapped yourself. He didn't get very close, but just close enough to have influence over her.  
"If that's the game you want to play," he said, "we're going to play it my way. I'm going to ask you a question that I want answered and then I'll think about answering your question."  
"How did you get thrown back into purgatory?"  
"I suppose you could call it a cruel twist of fate." He muttered.  
"I know people make deals with you-you things. Did you make a deal with somebody?"  
Paul grinned confidently, stepping a little closer to the cowering girl.  
"You don't even know what I am."  
"Because you won't tell me!" you argued.  
"No, I won't." Paul stepped right up to her then, holding you against the wall with just his proximity. He could feel your anxious breath on his throat. "Do you know why I won't? I won't say because I know you're thinking about it. I've been inside your head more often than you think in the short time we've known each other."  
He brushed a curled piece of your hair out of your face and you inhaled sharply, turning your face away from his touch. He laughed at you.  
"I don't know what I think," you growled. "I just know that you're not good. I know you're no 'dark angel,' so you lied about that, which means you likely also lied about how you got thrown in purgatory in the first place. You didn't fight in the civil war, did you? Would you care to tell me the truth at least?"  
"You don't want to know what really happened." He murmured darkly, his eyes flashing that horrid solid black for just a split second.  
"Yes, I do." You argued. "I want to know who—no, you're not a who. I want to know what I'm dealing with."  
"Alright, pretty doll," Paul said, staring down his nose at you. "How about this: first, you tell me what you think I am. If you're right, I'll tell you my true story and we'll see if you make it through the tale without running away."  
"Why do I have to tell you?" You whispered, your voice trembling softly.  
"Because I want to hear you say it." Paul replied simply.  
You took a deep breath. You were stuck between a cold wall and an even colder being, and you'd be the first to admit that you were already terrified.  
"D-demon," you whispered. "You're a demon."  
"Ding-ding-ding!" Paul shouted, shaking his finger in time with the words. His outburst made you jump. "We have a winner! Oh, that felt good…"  
"N-now tell me what you did." you said, not willing to drop the fight yet.  
"You're not going to like it." Paul sang tauntingly.  
"Just tell me."  
Paul shrugged before bursting forth into his tale soaked with death, nightmares, and blood.  
"I'm something from your worst nightmare. I came to earth to harvest the weak civilization known as the human race. And oh, it was so easy. You're right, I didn't fight in the civil war; I started it. I pitted an entire nation against itself! I created sides, and I drank every drop of blood that fell to the soil. With every macabre death I was there waiting. I'd watch them fight and I'd feed on their rage and when they'd die, I'd drink their blood and consume their souls, cursing them to damnation. I soaked up the hatred and the despair, the sorrow, the selfishness, the pain…it gave me such immense strength. It's what I do; it's what we do. It was absolutely beautiful…until one night, a woman woke up. She saw me leaving; she saw my face. And then I learned, just as I had been walking amongst the humans disguised as one of them, another had chosen the same mask. She was a god, an annoyingly holy do-gooder, veiled by a human body, a body I had just invaded. She locked me in her home with one twitch of her heavenly finger and trapped me in a pentagram on the floor. I asked her to send me back to hell if she was going to banish me, but she said that hell would be too kind. So she sent me into purgatory. I was half-alive, half-dead, surrounded by all the misery of the lost souls. I was weakened and I remained a fragile shell for a hundred years, only feeding on the broken souls of the damned that had joined me. And once I was strong enough I began looking for a way out. I searched for years before I found it. A supernatural craze was sweeping the globe like never before. There were so-called prophets and self-proclaimed mediums hosting séances, looking for things like me. I tried to get through so many times but they were smart. They all said goodbye. And then I found the Ouija boards; a clever little device, really, invented by a genius. So many young, delicious girls saw them as just games, nothing real. Your board in particular, well, I've had excellent luck with it, as you know."  
You had fallen silent. His story had been chilling, his dark, low voice massaging every single word with a certain amount of contempt. There was a moment when he'd been speaking about how he'd started the civil war and fed off the soldiers that you could see him for who he really was, and it was terrifying. His face had become malevolent and shadowed by the dark memories with a smile like he was relishing in it; as if he could still taste the blood and sorrow from those days on the back of his tongue. His hands had gripped and slashed at the air as he'd told his grisly tale, adding even more reality to the sadistic events. He was more than capable of doing all of that do you, too.  
When Paul noticed the look of quiet fear on your face, he stepped back a little more.  
"I told you that you weren't going to like it." he said.  
He'd been right, you'd hated it. You hated him for what he'd done, even though the events of the 1860's were entirely out of her control. But regardless of that you needed to move on from it. You weren't going to get rid of him anytime soon but you weren't going to forget what he'd told her and how he'd looked when he'd said it.  
In another second they were standing on a cobblestone street under a grandeur sunset as people chatted down alleyways and shops began closing up for the night. Zoe looked around at their surroundings and sniffed.  
"Where are we now?" you asked.  
"We're back in Venice," Paul answered. He pointed down the street to the only shop still totally lit up. "The Prince of Normandy is in that gelato shop right now. Spoiler alert but he's buying you strawberry banana flavour."  
"Oh…" you said quietly.   
"Are you gonna stay?" you asked quietly. "I mean, do demons like gelato…?"  
Paul chuckled. "Nah, we're more of a carnage and pain type."  
"Right…" you nodded sadly. "Paul?"  
"What?"  
"Are you…I mean, would you do any of that to me? If I free you, when it's all said and done, would you kill me like you did all those people in the 1800's?" The thought had been troubling you and if you were going to die, you'd feel a bit better knowing beforehand.  
Paul looked at you for a moment before shaking his head.  
"You said so yourself I made a promise to protect you," he explained. "If you free me, that's your prize: eternal protection from anything, anywhere, any time. I'll protect you from everything, including myself. It's kind of a moral contract; I'm bound to that, at least."  
"So you'd never really hurt me?" you asked.  
"Not if you don't ask for it," he warned. "Don't make me find the loopholes, y/n."  
You gave him a tiny smile. "I don't think it'd be in my best interest to do that."  
"No, I don't either. You better hurry up, your prince awaits, Sleeping Beauty." He nodded down the street at the royalty looking for you.  
"Oh yeah," you said wistfully, looking at the poor soul down the street.  
"You never know, it might last with him," Paul joked.  
"Nah, it's really just a fantasy," you shrugged. "It's only a dream, right?"  
"Yep," Paul agreed. "Enjoy it."  
You watched as the demon turned his back and faded into the shadows. You could hear footsteps approaching you from behind and a voice speaking your name in a funny accent, but you just kept staring at the spot that Paul had vanished. He was absolutely terrifying, twisted, and a homicidal sociopath, but you had a feeling that was only a small part of him. Maybe it was the hundred years spent weakened in purgatory that'd done it, but you felt like most of the part of him that'd driven him to slaughter had been killed off. There was a part of him that cared about something; you could see it in his face from time to time before he blocked you out. If you could figure out what that something was you might be able to have a bit more control in your situation. But alas, that was a problem for the morning. So in the meantime you politely took her bowl of gelato from the Prince of Normandy and they continued their dream walk down a lit up cobblestone street in romantic Venice, and all around them the shadows came to life in their wake.


	5. Chapter 5

Paul laid next to you in the bed, as you slept a smile on his face. Being his true nature at first had seemed to work. But now it seemed as though him being a demon did unnerve you a bit.   
None of this though was pushing you towards going through with the sacrificial ritual. So he had another idea in mind.  
Instead of scaring you, why not seduce you instead into going through with the ceremony? Cause if could just give you a taste of what she could possibly experience with him as a spirit, with the knowledge that it could only be better with him as a human form. Then she would crack and go through with the ritual.  
He chuckled darkly at the idea. Not only would he get his freedom out of it, he would also be getting you literally wrapped around more than his finger if this worked in his favor.  
\---  
You awoke from your dream, staring out into the darkness, still feeling tired, but needing to use the restroom and get something to drink before going back to bed.  
All you could think of was needing sleep but not wanting to in fear of meeting Paul again in your dreams.  
You walked into the bathroom, looking at your reflection in the mirror and sighed. You looked like absolute crap. Dark circles were forming under your eyes due to the lack of sleep to try and fight it off so you didn’t see Paul again in your dreams. You shut the door behind you, and locked it. Even if it didn’t really do anything it still gave you a sense of privacy.  
\--  
You closed the fridge and walked back to your room shutting off the lights as you went. You wanted to keep the lights on, almost as if keeping the lights on would prevent Paul from coming to you. You crawled under your blankets and rested your head on the pillows. Your body ached for sleep, but you were still too scared to let your eyes fall shut. Every shadow and every shape in the darkness around you was something malevolent, something terrifying. Plus, if you let yourself fall asleep, he'd be there, waiting for you. In her dreams he could touch you, which meant he could hurt you. You hadn't done anything. That was what you would tell him if he got angry: you hadn't done anything.. You certainly weren't capable of hurting him. You could yell at him, but that would only make things worse for you. No, you'd have to handle the matter in a calm and collected manner. Unfortunately, you were in no position to act calm and collected. you were too scared.  
You began to feel too hot under your heavy blankets, so you kicked them off and laid on top of them for a little while. When that did nothing, you slipped your robe on, walked over to the window, and opened it. The cool night air seeped through the screen and hit you, forcing you to hug your arms around your waist. It felt good on your clammy skin. It tossed little pieces of your hair around as you stared out at the empty, dark street. The only light source came from the lonely street lamp across the street, and it cast nasty shadows on everything just outside of the light's reach.  
As you were admiring the way the light disfigured everything, you felt the delicate pressure of fingers down your spine and arm. They were enticing; they were fingers that said 'come back to bed…come back to bed with me'. They transformed into the sensation of hands and arms and they wrapped softly around your waist. You gave a soft sigh of contentment, feeling safe in those arms, and you leaned back a little, expecting to find a whole body behind you for some reason even though you knew you were alone. You were reminded that you were alone when you stumbled back into the empty space behind you and you turned around to find no one standing there. The feeling of arms around your waist had vanished and suddenly the air coming in from the window had gone too cold. You shivered and shut the window but stood in front of it for a moment, hesitating to return to bed.  
You'd felt so safe and at home in the ghostly arms that had held you a moment ago. In your head, for some reason, you truly felt like there was a solid human body behind those arms. you'd felt like it was someone who truly loved you that was holding onto you so kindly. But it had been no one; it had been a phantom. No, it had been worse than that: it had been a demon; a trickster. It was all a trick. He was just trying to get you comfortable enough that you'd fall asleep. He was evil and couldn't be trusted.  
You stayed by the window looking out on the street, feeling the sudden weight of your eyelids starting to grow. You opened your eyes again, and felt a presence behind you. You turned head around seeing Paul standing behind you.  
“Looks like you fell asleep again.” Paul said, as you felt his arms go around your waist, as you tried to fight against his hold.  
“Get off of me!” You said, as you felt him move with you in his hold.  
How the hell is he actually doing this? If this is a dream is he actually moving me? You thought, as he moved in the direction of your bed and set you down, as you looked at him confused.  
“What? You fell asleep leaning against the window. Must’ve been really tired to be able to fall asleep standing up.” Paul said, as you made a point of laying next to you.  
“Why do you think that is? I didn’t wanna see you.” You said as you made a point of scooting yourself to the edge of the bed, next to the wall, the farthest you could away from him.  
“I heard your thoughts when I was picking you up. You really didn’t think I was capable of that? I mean I’ve been moving your furniture in your house since I’ve made my presence known. So it follows that it wouldn’t be that hard for me to pick you up and move you.” Paul explained, as you felt his fingers on your leg caressing it, as you moved away on contact.  
“You really think that everything I would do would be out of anger? That I couldn’t do other things? Because I’ve seen you, watched you since you summoned me, y/n. But, I’ll leave you to sleep. I think you need some.” Paul said, as he smirked at you, as you watched him disappear right before your eyes in the dream, as you closed your eyes in the dream and all you saw was darkness.  
No dream at all or at least not by your standards.  
You felt that same presence of pressure from earlier on your thighs, as you tried to move against it and realized that in doing so, you moved them apart, as you felt the pressure rising further up your thighs and onto your stomach, feeling fingers dance across your skin, as you felt someone’s breathe against the side of your face, your neck, as you felt a pressure on your neck.   
And not like the same, as if someone was kissing your neck, sucking on it, as you closed your eyes moaning against the sensation.  
Just as the feeling of the fingers went from your stomach, pushing up your top, exposing your stomach in the process. Those fingers moved lower, glided over your lower belly and you snatched at what was a wrist, surprised that you could feel it. And you doing that stopped the movement. You felt the breathe against your neck, waiting , the wrist relaxed in your hold.  
Slowly, you pushed the hand down until the tips of fingers were brushing against your mound. “Please…” you whispered, tears catching on your lashes. “ I need it.” You heard a groan next to you as you gave the wrist a squeeze. The tip of an index finger brushed your clit and your entire body went tense. You released his hand and spread your thighs a little more. “Please…”  
The hand moved lower, rubbing circles against the sensitive bud. Your lips were slightly parted and your eyes fluttered shut as you let yourself coast on pleasure.   
“That’s it, baby girl.” You heard next to you in the smoothest voice  
“More,” you begged, thrusting your hips up into the touch.  
Paul’s smile blossomed as he slid one thick digit between your folds, watching your reaction when he pushed his finger into you, pumping it a few times to coat his skin in your slick. You were writhing, now, still not sated, but Paul rumbled low in his chest, his free hand palming at the bulge in his pants. “y/n,” he growled, using his knees to move closer to you. “You want more, princess?”  
You nodded, barely able to keep your eyes open. He pushed two fingers against your soaked entrance and started to fuck them into you, curling them at just the right spot to make your back arch more and more with each stroke. The only word on your lips was a resounding “yes” which escalated in pitch with each repetition, and Paul grew closer and closer to snapping.  
The scent of you was getting stronger every second, and Paul was so hard he could feel the zipper of his pants biting into his erection, making him grit his teeth in frustration. But he couldn’t do anything to you yet. This was only the start.  
Your body tightened around him, and Paul urged you on, finding that soft, sweet bundle of nerves tucked tight inside. Lightning seemed to fill your belly, then the pressure released along with a loud cry from your lips that Paul swallowed down with a kiss- your first kiss. Your brows knit together, hands clinging to his neck as you whimpered and kissed him with as much as you had in you to give. You could feel the wet underneath you, and you were unsure if it was from the heat of the night or from the climax your ghost of a demon had just pushed you to.  
Suddenly, you recoiled, shame warring with the post-orgasm bliss. Paul withdrew his hand, staring at you with something entirely new filling his eyes. It was too much, and you snatched a blanket from the bed, covering yourself as much as you could.  
“You feel it, don’t you?” Paul rumbled, moving off of the bed to kneel on the floor with his elbows on the bed, and you went still, looking straight at him.  
“I don’t know what “it” is,” you replied, shivering. He reached over and you flinched. His fingers curled around the blanket behind you, tugging it until it covered you completely.  
“You’ll figure it out,” he promised, laying his hand across your cheek. “You’re safe here, in your dreams with me. You know that. But that’s just the first. I’ll give you five minutes without me and I’ll be back. You’ll be wanting more.” Paul said, as you woke up thinking that it was just a dream that that didn’t happen.  
Except the wet feeling in between your legs told you otherwise. You went up to change the bottoms of your pajamas and felt that same presence, same feeling of fingers ghosting over your arms, willing you to come back to bed, to sleep.  
Back to him.


	6. Chapter 6

All you could remember was flashes of the rest of the night. You waking up and falling back asleep, even if you did wake up because who the hell knows if that was part of the dream as well. All you could remember was the amount of times that you had brought your hand up, against your bed or against the wall to steady yourself against the feeling of his fingers on you and in you.  
You were in your dreams, so you didn’t even know if you could fight back. Or did you even want to fight back? Because frankly this demon had been giving you the best orgasms you had ever had.  
You awoke to the sound of your alarm blaring in your ear, as you groaned, feeling as though you had just went to sleep after another round, you didn’t know what number because it was a blur in your dreams.  
You smacked the alarm and then went to get up, as you felt the wetness between your legs, and knew that you would have to take shower as well as change the sheets.  
You looked back at the bed and saw him sitting on the bed, where you previously were laying, as if he had been holding you in your sleep.  
“Good morning y/n, sleep well?” He asked sarcastically, as you narrowed your eyes as him, as he made a point of licking his fingers.  
“What? You taste so good. Can’t imagine how you would be--” he said as you took the bedsheets in your hands and pulled, stopping his thought, as you balled up the sheets in your hands and threw them in the dirty clothes hamper. Intent on grabbing a clean set from a cabinet filled with extra blankets.  
He raised a brow at you, as you went to grab the clean set of sheets to replace on the bed. He smirked at you.  
“You can replace the sheets, but you probably need a shower, unless you want to clean you up, preferably with my mouth. But then again that would just make you just as dirty as before.” He said, as you didn’t reply to him.  
He wants to get a reaction out of me and he’s not going to. You thought as you sighed.  
He already did though multiple times last night. You thought, as you turned on your heel away from you bed and away from him, leaving the sheets on the foot of the bed, as you walked into the bathroom, shutting the door behind you, undressing.  
Making a point of not looking at your ruined pajama bottoms, and throw those into the hamper as well, as you turned the water on in the shower, the hottest that it could go as you hopped in and started scrubbing shampoo into your hair, as you closed your eyes.  
You heard a whistle and opened your eyes seeing nothing.   
“I thought you looked good in those pajamas last night, I mean of course you were in the throes of your own orgasms thanks to these..” You heard him say, as you felt invisible fingers on your shoulders, that started trailing down your sides, as you felt his hands go to cup your breasts. And you felt his invisible lips on your neck, the same spot that he had been kissing all night last night.  
“You already know how quickly I can make you cum just with my fingers, can you imagine how great it would be for me to take you fully.” You heard him whisper into your ear, as his hands moved lower.  
“But that can’t happen unless you go through with the ritual. All it is in a drop of your blood and some latin words and I’ll be free. To pleasure you.” You heard him whisper as you moved your head to the side, and felt his lips connect further with your neck, as you moaned.  
“No i can’t.” You said, as you felt him smile against your neck.  
“Why not? You’ve been enjoying it all night last night. I know we would enjoy it more if I was in my full human form.” Paul said, as you went you remove his hands.  
And of course you couldn’t. You stepped up into the spray of the shower, feeling his hands leave you. You made quick work of washing out the shampoo from your hair and quickly put in the conditioner. The quicker you were out the less time you had to be with him in this vulnerable position.  
Once done, you wrapped a towel around yourself and exited the bathroom, going to your closet and opening it up to grab clothes to change into.  
\--  
8 hours later…  
You drove your car into the driveway, feeling more tired than ever. And you weren’t looking forward to going home just to see what hell he planned on twisting in your brain tonight.  
You opened the front door, and heard music blasting in your bedroom. You walked in and saw your radio was on, and Paul was dancing around the room, his shirt that you had only ever seen button, was unbuttoned completely and barely on his shoulders, giving you a good view of his chest, and his pants that were sitting lower than you had ever seemed to notice in the past couple days.  
You felt your mouth go dry, as your eyes went from his face and worked their way down his body.  
God if he wasn’t a demon. You thought, as you licked your lips, and noticed that he was drinking from your very small collection of alcohol.  
“Hey that’s mine!” You shouted, as Paul smiled, as he continued drinking from the bottle, as you took it from his grasp which surprised you.  
“How did you do that?” You said, as you put the cap back on the bottle that was pretty much empty, as he smirked at you.  
“What are you talking about? I’ve been moving your furniture around since day one. You're surprised that I can pick up a bottle of booze and drink it?” Paul asked rhetorically, as you noticed he was still smirking at you.  
Great a drunk demon. You thought, as you turned away from him, as he looked you up and down.  
“Looks like you had a hard day, might as well have a drink.” He said, as you turned around to look at him and it looked like he almost was pouting at you.  
Which was kinda cute.  
“You have no idea.” You said, as you went to sit on the bed, feeling the exhaustion hit you in another wave, as you went to lay on the bed, feeling the tears seem to surface, as you turned on your side, uncapping the bottle and drinking a bit of it, then grimacing at the harsh taste.  
“I think I’m gonna get fired. I snapped at a client and my boss bitched me out until my shift was done for it. When it wasn’t even my fault.” You started explaining, as you heard the noise from the radio go silent, as Paul had shut off the radio, then went to sit next to you on the bed.  
“Want me to go haunt your boss's ass?” he said, as you looked up and smiled, despite yourself, because it seemed like he actually was being nice.  
Or was he? Was this an act to get you to agree to the ritual? You thought, as you took another sip from the bottle.  
“Wouldn’t that mean I would have to like be standing outside with the ouija board?” You asked, actually contemplating the idea of having your dark and dangerous demon go scare the crap out of your boss.  
“No” he said simply, which made the gears in your head start turning.  
“Wait, you're not connected to the board? I know ghost 101 at least and you would have to be connected to something to constantly pop up.” You said as you turned, and saw that the playfulness that had been in Paul’s eyes before was slowly fading.  
“Come on let’s go to your boss’s house. All he needs is some shit being flung around his house for a couple minutes, problem solved.” Paul said, avoiding your previous question.   
You quickly hopped up from the bed, and made your way to where you knew the ouija board was kept, as you heard him behind you.  
“y/n, what are you doing?” He asked as his voice got lower, menacing, as you picked up the board in your hands, as you felt him trying to take it from you.  
“Your connection is to the board. So, if the board no longer exists neither do you.” You said, as you turned and went towards the kitchen and grabbed a match and lit it turning around and seeing Paul’s form in the window from the moonlight.  
“y/n you don’t know what your doing.” He said, as he took a step forward, as you narrowed your eyes.  
“Yes I do know. I want you away from me.” You said, as a smile crept on his face.  
“You just don’t know what to do with the new information. You realize that I’ve brought you more pleasure last night then you’ve ever experienced. And you're questioning everything. We can talk about this if you would just put the match out.” He said trying to reason with you, as you put the match closer to the ouija board box.  
“y/n. Let’s talk about this. You’ve had a bad day and your lashing out.” Paul said as he put his hands up, as you narrowed your eyes.  
“Your a demon. If I had any idea that this wasn’t just a game I wouldn’t have let my friend bring the board down. You aren’t supposed to be here and I won’t let you try and manipulate me.” You said, as you had the match touch the game and saw as it started going up in flames, as you dropped it into the sink, and turned back and saw that Paul started to be covered in flames and didn’t look happy.  
“y/n! Put the fire out!” He shouted as you backed away from him as you saw his eyes that had been their mahogany brown were now that inky darkness that scared you.  
“Fine if you won’t do it!” He shouted as he went towards the sink and you thought he would turn on the water, but blew on it, and the fire was instantly out, as you stood in the kitchen in shock as he held up the game.  
And the anger that was on his face before, was gone, and in its place a triumphant smirk.  
“Knew I had to test it. But I couldn’t be the one to light it up, it had to be you.” Paul said as you blinked.  
What? You thought, as you felt your heart rate start to accelerate.  
“You thought I was connected to the board? I was initially. But after the first dream, which was your chance at making sure that I could be sent back into purgatory I was connected still. Until last night. I got just strong enough to not only impact our dreams but to actually touch you. In more ways than one. So no i’m no longer connected to the board y/n. I’m connected to you.” Paul said, as you looked at him in shock as he smiled.  
“You should always read the instruction before playing a game y/n. It was right on the box.” he said as he flipped the box and you saw some fine print that was on the box that you didn’t notice before when you had been playing it in the candlelight what seemed to be ages to go with your friends.  
“It...was on the box?” you said, stunned, as you looked at the box and saw that in fact it was. Everything, about him being contained in the game, that he would infiltrate your dreams if you didn’t say goodbye. And that after a certain time he would no longer have a connection to the board game but to the one that allowed him to stay to grow stronger.  
“Of course it was on the box. I have to explain everything or else it would seem like I’m trying to take advantage.” Paul said, as he dropped the game on the floor, as he looked at you.  
“y/n, you don’t look too good?” he said, as your eyes rolled back into your head as your body went limp and towards the floor, but he caught you before your head could hit the floor.  
He picked you up bridal style, putting you on the bed, moving the hair away from your face, as his eyes changed from the inky blackness to mahogany brown, as he looked down at you. Grazing his hand against the side of your face.  
“Damn it all to hell. Didn’t think I would start liking you y/n. You are feisty and I like that alot.” Paul said more to himself, as he went to lay next to you in the bed, holding you, making sure that you were breathing, as he kissed the top of your head, and closed his eyes and went into your dreams once again.


	7. Chapter 7

You open your eyes and try and remember your dream from the night before. Something about trying to set the ouija board on fire and then seeing Paul covered in flames but not affecting him.  
Which wasn’t a dream at all.  
You got up out of bed, noticing that you were still in your work uniform from last night. Groaning you went to start the coffeemaker and then went into the bathroom to take a shower, to try and wash away all the stress from last night’s admissions.  
He was right after all. He had been giving the best pleasure you had ever experienced. And it was just from his fingers which you think of how good it could be. But you couldn’t agree to the ritual for your own sexual desires. He was content on coming back in human form for one reason. To destroy things, and kill people once again. And to probably start the next world war if he had it his way.   
All these things were swarming around in your head, when you realized something. He hadn’t made a point of making himself known at all like the day before. He’s quiet today.  
Maybe had a hangover? You thought, which brought a smile to your face as you washed the last of the conditioner out of your hair and turned off the water, grabbing a towel and wrapping it around you, as you stepped out of the shower and into your room, seeing him there on your bed, looking up at you.  
“Hello y/n. Sleep well?” he asked, a neutral expression on his face.  
“That’s interesting considering I found out last night that this was all a setup and that now its either that I’m stuck with you like this around me or I go through the ritual and who knows what your going to do.” You said, as he just looked you up and down in only your towel.  
“I could help you dry off y/n.” He said, as his hand was close to the side where you wrapped the towel into your side, as you moved away from him, as the smile dropped off his face.  
“You know how annoying that is. I say something and you completely ignore me.” You said, as you turn away, feeling ridiculous arguing with him.  
“What do you want me to do? Apologize? Cause i’m not going to. It was my one way I could see getting out of purgatory. You can’t fault a guy for trying to use his charms on a pretty lady like yourself” Paul replied, as he got up off your bed, as you went to your closet to pick out another uniform to change into.  
“Back at work already?” Paul said, as you turned and glared at him.  
“Coworker asked if I could fill in for them this morning.” You said, as you took out a bra and underwear from your dresser as well.  
“No lacy ones. Have to change that very soon.” Paul said, as he glanced in your underwear drawer, before you slammed it shut and walked back into the bathroom to change into the all black attire.  
You were slipping on your shoes and tying your hair back into a ponytail, grabbing your keys as you walked out of the door and to your job.   
\----  
One of your regulars was jabbering away in the chair, as you brushed through their hair. Usually it was the other way around but since Paul came around it was nice having the tables turn on the talking, so you could have time with your thoughts.  
“I’m just going to look at your file and mix the dye I’ll be back in a moment.” You said as you put the brush on your station, and went to one of the back rooms where the supplies were kept and where you usually keep the client files for hair dye colors and mixes.  
You grabbed your client’s file and was glancing at their color matches to get the correct color mixes and developers together to do a touchup job from the previous month. You looked and put the file back into the cabinet and saw something black in your peripheral and jumped what felt like 10 feet grabbing at your chest.  
“Oh my god you scared me!” you hissed, as Paul smiled at you.  
“Thought I would join you at your work. You didn’t mention you were a hair stylist.” He said, as you narrowed your eyes at him.  
Of course he would follow me to work. Since he’s not connected to the board and to me. You thought, as you groaned.  
“I can make you my personal hairstylist when I get out. I was thinking maybe taking a couple inches off…” Paul said, as he smiled at you, as you turned away ignoring him so you didn’t look like a complete crazy person talking to thin air.  
\--  
You were walking down the street, Paul rambling off in your ear, trying to get a reaction out of you, as you rolled your eyes. Your thoughts only on the greasy food that you were thinking about eating by yourself at the diner that you were headed to not noticing someone that walked right next to you. Stopping just as you passed them, and moving their sunglasses to get a better look at you.   
You felt eyes on you, which made you turn around and look at the person. Wearing all black, plus the black sunglasses and big hair, and a big smile on his face.  
“Take a picture it might last longer.” You said, as the man raised his eyebrows behind his sunglasses as you.  
“Oh, I just might sweetheart.” He said, as you sneered at him and turned back around, more focused than ever to get to the diner now, but with an added beer to the order of greasy food.  
You noticed that Paul had fallen silent behind you, and you could feel him almost pushing you along to your destination, practically tripping over your own feet.  
“Hey hey I got it. I’m going alright.” You whispered, as you glanced to your side, and saw that Paul’s expression was pensive.  
“Wow haven’t heard you this quiet since my friend opened that damn game board.” You said joking, trying to get a reaction from him cause you were kinda startled by the silence.  
“You need to get sage and then go home and lock your doors.” Paul said, as you felt him pushing you in the direction of where you had parked your car.  
“Ok ok, I’m going. But where’s the fire?” You asked, as you rounded the corner, clicking the lock on your keys, unlocking your car and slipping into the driver's seat, starting to feel freaked out over Paul’s mood switch.  
“I’ll tell you when you get the sage and then get home.” Paul said sternly, as you started the car.  
“Yeah like i know where to buy sage.” You said sarcastically, as you flipped out your phone from your pocket and googled it since he was being so pushy about the sage and ordered it on Amazon, as you felt him looking over your shoulder.  
“Just buy enough so you can get it tonight. You're going to need it.” Paul said, as you sighed, clicking a bundle that would qualify for free shipping that would be at your house in a few hours.  
“Happy now. I just spent $40 on a dried up plant.” You said, as you started your car and drove back to your house, feeling a chill in the car with how serious Paul had turned since you had just gotten off work.  
\--  
2 hours later…  
You were getting out of the shower, opening the door and saw Paul in the same position, pacing back and forth, while his eyes were on your front door.  
“You know if you weren’t a spirit you probably would have made an indentation into my nice flooring.” You said, as his eyes left your front door, and landed on you, tension still all over his face.  
“The sage is supposed to get here soon. And you're going to need to wear this.” Paul said, as he pushed a box over to you, as you looked at it, trying to remember where you saw that box before.  
“Ancestor’s belonging. It’ll help” he said, as you opened the box and saw that it was a necklace and then look at him.  
“Against what? What are you flipping out about?” You asked, as you heard the package being left on the porch, followed by a pinging from your phone that the sage was successfully delivered.  
You walked to your front door, and unlocked it, and picked up the plastic bag that contained the sage and closed the door, and locked the front door behind you as you went to grab some scissors to open up the bag.  
“You really wanna know what’s gotten me like this? WHen you were walking home, the guy that was checking you out wasn’t just a creep that was checking you out. He’s the one that changed me into what I am centuries ago. And he saw me, saw that I was connected to you.” he explained, as you tried to grasp all this information.  
“What? You aren’t just a demon?” You asked as Paul rolled his eyes.  
“That is what you get out of that? Yes I just didn’t up and start out as a demon y/n. I was a person a few centuries ago, and that guy, Gene, was the one that changed me, twisted my wishes into taking life and then I became a demon.” Paul explained, as there was a knock at your door, as you looked towards the door, a chill running down your spine.  
“It’s either the sage or we do the ritual right now. Cause I’m not going to be of any help to you as a spirit.” Paul said, as you look from the front door, knowing that you weren’t expecting visitors since it was so late at night. And then back to Paul.  
What am I supposed to do? You thought feeling helpless, as the knocking continued on the door.


	8. Chapter 8

The knocking persisted, as you looked from Paul’s face and then back at the door.  
“I’m not just going to go through with the ritual to see you get into your human form and then leave me here.” You said, as Paul rolled his eyes at you.  
“Like I would do that. I told you before I’ll protect you that’s the deal.” Paul replied, as you looked at the bag of sage that was on your table and opened it, grabbing one of the dried-up rolls in your hand, as you went to grab a lighter from one of the kitchen drawers.  
“I can’t believe that I’m putting my damn live in the hands of a piece of dried sage.” You said, as you looked at Paul who was walking towards the front door and peeked out before moving back from the door and pushing you along with him.  
“I knew he would follow you.” He said, as you grasped onto the sage tighter.  
“So what i light it up and he goes away?” You asked, as you looked up at Paul, who took the sage from you and lit it as you saw him seem to get hazy, as he gave it to you.   
And he started getting hazier.  
“What’s happening?” You asked, as you saw him walk to get another piece of sage and lit it, walking around your place and making a point of turning the sage smoke in the direction of the front door, as his figure was getting hazier and hazier as he started coughing.  
“That should do it. He should be gone just make sure to burn the sage by the door, just to make sure that he doesn’t come back.” Paul said as he set the smoking sage plant close to the front door, as he turned around and looked at you.  
“What happening to you?” You asked as Paul smiled.  
“I’ve made sure that he’s not going anywhere near you. The sage is affecting him, which means that it’s affecting me as well. I won’t be coming back until the sage plant is extinguished. By then everything should be squared away.” he said, as you saw him getting hazier and hazier.   
“Told you that I would protect you y/n.” he said, just as he disappeared with a pained groan.  
Leaving you gripping the smoking sage in your hand and looking at the spot that Paul was previously standing at, wondering when it would be safe if at all to let the smoking sage to be put out at some point.  
\---  
You stayed in the living room, catching yourself from dozing off. You even went the extra mile to make yourself a coffee to try and stay awake, keeping your eyes on the sage that Paul placed by the door before he disappeared right before your eyes.  
Despite your feelings to him before you felt sad about him leaving even if it was only temporary. He made the move to light the sage and hold it, and you knew that affected him negatively because he was a demon.  
But was the badass scary demon just a mask? Was it all an act or was he being nice and protecting you an act? You thought, feeling like you were thinking in circles confusing yourself over this mystery man’s motives.  
While in your thoughts, you didn’t notice the burning sage that was by the door, it’s smoked turning in the opposite direction, away from the front door.  
And then being put out by an unseen force.  
This is when you couldn’t keep your eyes open and fell asleep on your couch as the burning sage by the door was blown out and the plant in your hand was taken out of your hand and blown out as well.  
A hand went towards you as Paul appeared in front of you as he took ahold of the hand and pulled it away from you.  
“If you touch her so help me, I’ll send your ass back to hell myself,” Paul said, as Gene stood before him, in all black, shades still covering his eyes as he took them off revealing the inky black eyes that were the one and the same that Paul had himself.  
“Boy, I would like to see you try.” He said as he laughed, twirling the burning sage in his hands.


	9. Chapter 9

You awoke startled, looking around, expecting to see you still in your house, but you weren’t. It looked like a basement that you were in. You looked around to see where the door was to let you out. You tried to turn the knob but it didn’t turn. You felt the tears start to well up in your eyes.  
You didn’t know where you were and why you were brought here.  
“So your Paul’s little connection away from purgatory?” You heard, as you turned and saw the man wearing all black and blacked out sunglasses over his eyes.  
You wanted to respond, but couldn’t, as his hand came up to touch your face, as you flinched away, as he smiled.  
“Why did you follow me back to my house?” You asked, as Gene tsked at that.  
“That’s not the right question y/n.” he said, as he waved his hand out and a chair came sliding from the side of the room, and hit you in the back of the legs, causing you to fall back into the chair.  
You heard a cackle from behind your and felt hands on your shoulders.  
“So your Paulie’s girl. Very cute.” the man said behind you with a very new york accent, as you started feeling as though the walls of the basement were caving in on you, as you were turned around to face the man.  
He was very thin and tall, long brown hair, and didn’t seem as intimidating as Gene, as he smiled at you, his light brown eyes seemed friendly, as they switched to the inky darkness that you had come to be familiar with now.  
“Ace, stop.” Gene said, as Ace moved away from you with Gene’s authoritative order, his voice reverberating off the brick walls of the basement.  
“Sorry boss. Just wanted to check out Paulie’s girl.” He said in an apologetic tone, as he stared down at you, and you could feel Gene’s eyes from behind you.  
“I’m not his girl.” You said, as you wanted to get up but felt as if unseen ropes were tying you down to the chair.  
The chair was turned, to face Gene as he looked at you with a smile on his face.  
“I beg to differ on that point sweetheart. I saw you walking down the street and saw him clear as day attached to you. So I would say that you are his girl, his connection now instead of that little board game fiasco he roped himself into centuries ago.” Gene said, as you tried to control your surprise at him knowing about the ouija board in your house.  
“And yes I do know about the board. Of course I would. I’m in constant contact with those that I have created. But that’s a tale for another day. What I need you to do is go through with the ritual sweetheart so he can be put back at his full potential.” he said, as the wheels started turning in your head.  
“Why would I agree to that? Why would I let another demon like you out?” You asked, as you felt the invisible ropes that bound you to the chair seemed to tighten around you, squeezing you into the chair more.  
“Oh after a bit of time you’ll be spouting out those magic words.” Gene said, as he nodded not to Ace but someone else that was in the shadows just waiting.  
“Peter? Would you like to show y/n are other hostage?” He asked.  
A man with dark hair, almost gray in color, shorter than Ace and Gene, and it seemed like he was holding onto something.  
And that something was Paul, who was fighting against this man’s hold, who seemed to have a hard grasp on his form despite the fact that Paul was only in his spirit form.  
“He can’t talk right now so don’t bother.” Gene said, as he turned your chair back so your line of sight was on him, and not on Paul.  
“Your going to agree to it y/n. You're going to let him out.” He said, as you felt his eyes seem to stare deeply in your soul.  
And he snapped his fingers and you were sitting in pain, wanting to double over because of it but you couldn’t because of the unseen restraints. The feeling of invisible knives piercing you from everywhere was excruciating.  
“I see why you like her Paul, she is fighter.” Gene said, as he looked from you to Paul, who was still fighting against the hold that Peter had on him.  
“Usually people can’t stand more than a second of this. I might actually be able to have some fun.” Gene said as he twisted his hand, as you twisted in the seat, as he let his hand fall, as you relaxed in the chair. The invisible twisting knives feeling was gone as quickly as it came.  
“Will you go through with the ritual y/n? All it requires is just a little bit of blood and three words and this is all over.” Gene said, as he crouched down to your level in the chair, as you tried to breath.  
He looked at you, and then narrowed his eyes at you and the knives were back twisting through you, and then finally you felt cuts all over your body, as you looked down at your arms and saw the cuts and the blood pouring out from them, as you screamed.  
“Yes! Yes I’ll do it. Just please stop.”You said, as Gene put his hand down again, as he smiled at you.  
“See, it wasn’t that hard now was it. And we already have some of your blood from all this. Win-win.” he said as he touched your arm, and came closer to you, whispering in your ear the three words that would release Paul from his spiritual form.  
“When i say to do so. Say the words.” He said as he got up and went over to where Peter was standing, and holding onto Paul in his spiritual form, as he put his other hand up swiping his hand across Paul’s mouth covering his mouth with you blood, as he went closer to Paul and opened up his mouth, as you watched as a dark mass went from Gene and into Paul, as Paul tried to struggle away from it.  
But he couldn’t due to the tight hold that Peter had on him, that didn’t allow him to move, and in effect breathed in the mass himself.  
And he stilled.  
“Say the words y/n.” he said, as you looked at him.  
“Not until you tell me what you just did.” You say, feeling those restraints tightening again.  
“DO IT!” He shouted, as you jumped in the seat and closed your eyes and you said the three words.  
“Agite Tenebrae Abyssi” you whispered, as Gene started laughing, as you opened your eyes and saw Paul’s figure seemed to be clearer not to you, as Peter dropped his hold on him and stepped away as Paul opened his eyes in a blank look on his face.  
“My friend you are back. In full form and at full potential again. And now it's your turn to follow through with the deal.” Gene said, as he moved to the side, revealing you to him as a big smile spread across Paul’s face, as he launched himself at you as you screamed unable to move away as you felt his teeth sink into your skin.  
And then all there was, was darkness as you passed out.


	10. Chapter 10

You awoke feeling drowsy, lifting your head seeing that you were back in your house, as your hand immediately went to your neck, feeling the dried blood on your neck. Then realized as you looked down that all the little cuts were all over your body still, hearing footsteps come towards you, you brace yourself for seeing all the demons in your house.  
You feel an added weight on the other side of the bed, cautiously turning over and seeing that it was just Paul, looking concerned.  
“You're awake. I wanted to apologize for my behavior before. Once you released me, I couldn’t help myself. You just smelled so good.” He said, as he laid down next to you, as you went to move away from him.  
“You bite me, how am I supposed to accept the apology for that?” You asked, as Paul sighed and pulled you against him.  
“Fine, but let me help you.” Paul said, as you felt his breath against your forehead, as you felt his lips caress you neck, as his tongue touched one of the many cuts that covered you body.  
With the contact you felt the pain from the cuts started to subside, as you looked over at your arm and saw them start to disappear before your eyes.  
“Injuries that are inflicted by demons can be healed by demons.” Paul said simply, as you felt him shift on the bed next to you.  
You didn’t reply. Because what could you say? Awe thanks for healing me from all the injuries that you and the other demon inflicted on me to get me to say the words to invoke you to come back into your full body again, and at full power now to destroy things. You thought, as you rolled over to not face him.  
“You realize that that wasn’t my intention whatsoever. I mean yes I was trying to convince you at some point to go through with the ritual but not like that at all. Especially at the hands of Gene.” Paul explained, as you sighed.  
“But looking on the bright side, now that I am back in my body, we can have a little fun.” Paul said, as you felt his fingers start to trail up your arm, as you rolled over to face him again.  
“You really think that I’m going to have sex with you after all of this?” You said, angry as Paul simply smiled at you, and for the life of you, it took all your strength not to groan.  
Cause he did have a very nice smile. But god dammit you weren’t going to let your self control crumble just because he knew how to push your buttons.  
You got up off the bed, and walked over to your front room where the sage was left over and pick one up and turned around and Paul was standing right behind you.  
“y/n what are you doing with the sage?” he asked, as you went to light it as he smiled at you and took a hold of it and blew it out.  
“That’s not gonna really work that well. Tingles a bit but it’s not going to keep me away now.” Paul said, as you started to back away from him.  
Every step that you took to get away from him, he took towards you.  
“You promised that you would protect me, and you bite me. You're completely sure you are you and in complete control?” You asked, which was more you thinking aloud, which seemed ridiculous coming out of your mouth. Because you were talking to a demon that you had revived into his body and back to his full power that he could dispense on you just if he felt bored.  
Which you were still struggling to wrap your mind around that demons were even a thing and you had one advancing on you at the moment.  
The only thing that stopped you in your tracks was the doorknob jabbing into your back, as Paul stopped and looked at you with a smile on his face, as his hand went up to stroke your face.  
“I assure you y/n, I’m more myself than ever. And I know I promised to protect you, and I still will. I just was overwhelmed by the change, that's all.” He said, as he fingers grazed the side of your face, your lips, down your neck as he said this.

"I’ve chosen you to be mine. I saw you, and I knew I had to have you. This sweet, pure being -" He cocked his head to the side, inhaling deeply; was he scenting you? "You’re the complete opposite of the man I used to be, and the man I’ve become."  
"You’re a demon," you whispered, shaking your head. "I would never -"  
"You would never do what? Commit to this sin?" he laughed, his brown eyes raking over your clothed body. "Oh but you would. I know about your dreams, and your doubts, sweetheart. You’ve all but confessed them to me in your dreams. The other nights before this you didn’t protest to my touch" He leaned in, his sinfully pink lips close to your ear as you shuddered. Heat pooled between your thighs and you squeezed them together, biting your bottom lip when Paul pulled away, a triumphant smirk on his lips. "See? I can smell you, smell your desire."  
"It’s not...I can’t...please, just let me go." Your voice was barely a whisper, your tone not quite what you’d expected. Paul smirked, shaking his head.  
"You don’t want that, not really."  
" I’m not going to hurt you, Y/N." Paul frowned. "And I don’t want you to be scared of me." His hand cupped your face again and this time you didn’t flinch away, instead letting your eyes rest in his brown gaze. A sudden warmth flooded your veins as both of you stood there, almost like statues, Paul’s soft breathing mirroring your own. "I just want you to realise that you were made for so much more."  
Paul smirked; it was the most sinful expression you’d ever seen. He withdrew his hand, stepping back. "You do as I tell you." Gesturing toward you, his smile only grew in mischievousness . "Strip, sweetheart. Take off those clothes and show me what you're made of."  
You hesitated, glancing back towards the front door. Staring at him, you wondered if he could hear everything you were thinking, which was about the time your mind started going to the dark, pornographic material you’d been picturing in your mind.   
He laughed.  
"Trust me, sweetheart. Everyone’s got a dark side. You too. I can practically feel it inside you, begging to be let out, begging for you to live your life."  
A dark coil of desire pooled in your belly as he spoke - you reached around the front of your top, shedding it from you, letting it fall to the floor. You found yourself startled at the sound he made in response.   
"That’s it, baby," he encouraged. Paul groaned, palming the growing erection in the front of the black pants he was wearing.  
"This...this is okay?" you whispered, unsure of yourself now you’d started. Paul nodded, motioning for you to continue. Your fingers shook as you unzipped the jeans and let it pool around your ankles, stepping free. You used your toes to push your shoes off, your socks with them, and Paul’s eyes darkened as he watched you stand slightly awkwardly in front of him, your white bra and matching panties.   
"White. Almost virginal." The demon grinned, coming forward again. "But we both know you aren’t, right?" he asked, and you nodded. "You’re not done."   
Swallowing, you reached back to unhook the boring white bra, letting it drop to the floor with the rest of your clothes before bending to push your panties down your legs. They were visibly damp as you removed them and Paul inhaled deeply as you stood straight, avoiding his gaze.   
"Smells like someone’s a little excited." He was still touching himself, watching you like you were his next meal. “Come here.” You obeyed, stepping into his hold, feeling his warm hand rest on your hip. "Now, what’s the next step?"  
"I don’t know," you whispered and Paul smirked.  
"I’ve got the perfect idea for you," he spoke as he dropped to his knees. "Spread your legs for me, baby."  
"What - what are you doing?!" you asked, almost hissing at him as he nudged your thighs open, exposing your cunt to his view.  
"Oh, that’s a pretty little pussy," he commented, and you reached down, intending on pushing him away. Your fingers threaded through soft locks as he pulled you closer; you whimpered at the first touch of his fingers on your slick sex. "Baby, you are so wet," Paul praised, pushing one long digit into your channel before removing it and sucking your essence into his mouth. "Now," he grinned up at you, "don’t fall over."  
You opened your mouth to speak but it came out as a cry when his tongue touched against your clit, massaging the tiny bundle of nerves with the tip. He hoisted your right leg up over his shoulder, leaving you shaking on one foot whilst he licked and sucked at your pussy, thrusting his tongue into your hole before dragging it up to seek out your clit again. It was swollen with need, almost pulsing and you threw your head back, fingers still in his hair as he worked you over expertly, his fingers aiding with lazy thrusts into your drenched cunt.  
"Paul..." you whimpered, a harsh but pleasurable sensation building in your core, pounding outwards through your veins as he kept applying pressure to your clit. His fingers buried themselves in your cunt, curling inward - he touched on a spot you’d never felt before.   
A feeling like liquid fire burst through you and you screamed in pleasure, your hips rolling, your insides clamouring for more pressure, more friction as you came hard on his fingers and mouth. Your legs wobbled but you didn’t fall, and Paul pulled away with a triumphant smirk, your juices glistening on his chin.  
"Good girl," he muttered, standing and holding you steady. "I think that just about covers it." He leaned in close, pressing his lips to yours, stealing a first kiss from you. You moaned as you tasted yourself on his mouth, apparently pleasing him with the sound. "Fuck, you’re amazing, and I haven’t even had a chance to sink my thick cock into that tight little pussy yet."  
"I...I..." You had no words and the desire to push him backwards and take what your body was demanding was overwhelming. "Paul..."  
He grabbed your hand and placed it over his erection, straining against the fabric of his pants. "I don’t..." He was thick and hard underneath your palm, the heat of him almost cutting a straight line to your own sex.  
"I do." Paul released your hand, smiling when you didn’t remove it. You squeezed gently "You’re going to return the favour." Unfastening his pants, he let his cock spring free, obviously expecting you to run.  
You didn’t.  
Lust was a powerful emotion and he’d woken it inside you, giving you the out you’d denied yourself. You dropped to your knees, wrapping your fingers around his swollen shaft.  
Paul smiled triumphantly. "God, that’s it, sweetheart,” he purred, watching you stroke him experimentally.  
Sticking your tongue out delicately, you tried to remember how you’d done this the last time. You’d only done it once, and you were suddenly terrified of disappointing him. Something must have come across in your demeanour, as Paul’s hand suddenly cupped your cheek and he smiled at you. This smile wasn’t filthy, or demeaning, or victorious - he was smiling at you like he genuinely cared.  
"Don’t worry. You definitely won’t disappoint me, baby."  
Confidence bolstered by his words and expression, you moved forward, running your tongue over his tip. He tasted salty, but not unpleasant, and you moaned as you took an inch or so of him between your lips, encouraged by the throaty growl he gave. His hand moved to the back of your head, pulling you closer and you took him into your mouth as far as you could, doing what felt right.  
Paul grunted as you worked your mouth over him a few times, building up the saliva on your tongue, before tracing the underside of him. The vein there pulsed and throbbed against your tongue; he moaned in response as you massaged him with your lips, using one hand to hold the few inches you couldn’t fit into your mouth. As you pulled away, you increased the pressure on his tip, running your tongue over the weeping slit, tasting his precum on your tongue.  
Hell was a certain destination for you now, on your knees, a demon’s cock between your lips that had just a few minutes ago was spewing angry words at the demon you were sucking off. And moaning like a wanton whore.  
"Stop," Paul growled, pulling back. "Fuck. Jesus Christ."   
You smiled, feeling bolder than you’d ever felt in your life. "Was it good?" you asked, batting your eyelashes coyly up at him and he growled, before hauling you to your feet. With a rough touch, he picked you up in his arms, wrapping your legs around his taut waist as he walked the two of you back into your bedroom. Sweeping the sheets of the bed back with his free arm, as Paul set you down on the bed.  
"You’re mine," he snarled, ripping open his black button down, as the buttons go flying. You mewled in need as he roughly thrust two fingers into your cunt, making sure you were wet enough for him. "I’ll show Him, and everyone else." Crying out, you didn’t fight when he pushed you onto your back, lifting your knees, before positioning himself at your soaked entrance.  
With one swift thrust, he was sheathed inside you to the hilt and you screamed in a combination of pain and pleasure, drowning out Paul’s groaned " so fucking tight .”   
He didn’t wait long for you to adjust, the need to fuck you too overwhelming to ignore. "You’re exactly how I imagined. Hot, wet and tight. My perfect little slut." He seized your mouth, thrusting his tongue against yours in time with his thrusts into your cunt. You whimpered, positive you were going to die of pleasure as your second orgasm built to a crescendo.   
Paul surrendered your mouth as you tightened around his thick cock with your impending release and pushed up onto his hands so he could fuck you harder into the bed. You were coming undone around the demon inside you, screaming for him. He grinned, knowing he had you, watching you toss your head back and forth, babbling for him to be harder, faster -  
"Your mine now," he muttered, latching onto your neck with his teeth, breaking the skin with a harsh bite. You screeched again, vaguely aware of the pain but overwhelmed with pleasure. "Fucking tight little whore. But I knew it when you played the game that you were mine. I fucking knew it."   
Slamming into you once more, he forced a strangled finally cry from your lips.  
Paul emptied into you, black swallowing brown as he finished. looking down at you , as if you were his own pornographic show.   
He was still mostly dressed but you were unabashedly nude and fucked out, sprawled across the bed.  
"Your perfect y/n," he said, as you looked back up at his black eyes, as you leaned up and pushed his now ruined black button down shirt off of his shoulders, as he smiled at you.  
Then brought him down with you on the bed, kissing him passionately. And he was swiveling his hips, making you realize that he was still hard, as he pulled out of you.  
“I’m not done with you yet, y/n. Just want to get more comfortable.” He said, as you looked up and saw that he took off his pants, as you were trying to control your breathing and your heart rate. He crawled back onto the bed to join you as he kissed you and you lazily wrapped you arms around his neck bringing him closer to you, as he chuckled against your neck.  
“I knew i would be able to convince you in my own persuasive ways y/n.” he said, before his kisses started up again from your neck down as you closed your eyes.  
If this was such a bad thing why did it feel so damn good. And right? You thought as your thoughts went to what Paul had been saying before. Where we meant to be together?


	11. Chapter 11

You wake up in the early morning, stretching feeling the soreness all over your body as you smile thinking of the night before.  
You felt him shift next to you as you cuddled into him sighing into completely contentment.  
Then it hit you.  
Last night was just not some passionate night of sex. But sex you finally had with Paul who seemed to now be your personal demon.  
You pulled away as you felt him try and pull you back chuckling as he did so at your moves to try and get his hands away from you.  
“Y/n, don’t play like you didn’t like what we did last night. Repeatedly.” Paul said as you saw that all he had covering him from the waist down was one of you blankets as you felt a cold breeze sweep through the house as you shivered, wanting to escape into the covers but knew that if you did you would have to stay in bed with him. And that just wasn’t an option seeing as your own sense of self preservation that should have kicked in failed to do so.  
Which was probably due to the mind blowing sex he had given you last night.  
You shook your head as you went to get up and grab your clothes from last night that had been on the floor. As you looked you saw that every article of clothing that you had taken off by the front door was gone. And so were Paul’s pants he had taken off by the foot of the bed last night.  
“Where are my clothes?” You asked as you pulled the sheet around you and went to stand up as Paul smiled.  
And then you noticed the sound of the washer and dryer going.  
“Took me a second to figure them out but I thought I would bust myself while you slept.” Paul said as you turned to look at him.  
“So you did the laundry?” You questioned not really believing what you were asking.  
“Yes and I cleaned up a bit around the house as well.” Paul said as you blinked not believing it.  
Until you looked around and noticed that the house was cleaner then it had been last night.  
“You cleaned the house.” You stated as you felt yourself smiling at the ridiculousness of it.  
A demon that cleans, it sounds so weird.  
“Well I don’t sleep so I had to busy myself in other ways while you took your cat naps in between.” Paul said as his fingers start to dance across your side under the blankets.  
“Just because you cleaned my house doesn’t mean I still don’t trust you.” You said, trying to sound confident, as you started to walk into the kitchen seeing that he also made coffee.  
“You think i wouldn’t make you coffee? Been in your head and your dreams long enough to know what you like.” Paul said, as he got up off the bed and walked over to you, as you went to pour yourself a cup of coffee.  
Feeling his fingers dance along your exposed back, and down your spine. You wanted to lean into his touch but turned around and batted his hands away from you as he smiled.  
“You can admit that you like my touch, among other things y/n. No one is here just you and me. Nothing to be ashamed of.” He said, as you fixed the sheet up higher on you, as you noticed that he wasn’t wearing anything. You instantly felt heat rise to your face, as you tried to look anywhere else.  
“Come on, what were you going to expect. My pants are in the wash. And speaking of clothes, since we both had a hand in ruining my shirt, I’m going to need to go shopping with you later.” He said, as you looked at him shocked.  
“Oh no you aren’t going anywhere with me!” You said, as Paul smiled as he went around you to grab your coffee mug that you had been sipping from before and started drinking coffee as he walked away from you and going to lay down back in your bed, turning on the tv and starting to watch it.  
You took that opportunity of being away from him to go take a shower, as you made a point of closing the door and locking it.  
As you could clearly hear Paul chuckle as the sound of the lock was audible.  
“Sweetheart if I wanted to get to you a little lock isn’t going to stop me.” He said, as you groaned at yourself, as you turned on the water and started scrubbing at your body.  
On the one hand, he was charming, and you could actually see yourself being with someone like him.  
On the other, he was a demon plain and simple, which made every move that he made, everything that he said making you question him. If he was really being himself or was playing a game with you and your emotions.  
You stepped out of the shower, towel drying your hair and wrapped a towel around yourself then unlocked the bathroom door and stepped out.  
Paul was no longer laying on the bed like before. The sound of the local news coming from the tv.  
Did he just up and leave? You thought, as your eyes scanned your bedroom.  
And then there was a noise it was so slight, but made you leave your bedroom, as you felt your heart start to beat faster in your chest.  
Paul’s back was turned toward you, as you heard a noise, as he turned a man in his arms. If you had glanced quickly it might’ve looked like an embrace. Except for Paul biting at the man’s neck that seemed to be unconscious as you gasped.  
At that Paul’s eyes snapped open, the never-ended blackness to them again as he pulled away from the man’s next, his face from his lips down to his neck covered in blood, as he dropped the man, onto the floor, as Paul picked something up that had been resting on your couch.  
A shirt.  
Most likely the shirt the man that was now dead on your floor had been wearing.  
You started to back away as Paul turned a smile on his blood covered face.  
“y/n. I know your scared. Come here.” he said as he held his hand out to you as you backed up as he started taking steps towards you, feeling the panic start to set in.  
He narrowed his eyes at your retreating form until your back hit the frame of the hallway that lead back to your room.  
You wanted to look behind you, wanted to turn around and run away, but you thought that if you turned your head away just for a second that he would be there right in front of you, as you watched him take those couple of steps to be in front of you.  
“y/n. Just take a deep breath and I can explain it to you plain and simple.” he said, as he went to caress the side of your face.  
“I needed a shirt, he was walking by. And I started to get hungry. It was a win-win. Killing two birds with one stone.” he said, as he chuckled at his own cliched pun, as he looked at you fully, holding eye contact with you.  
And all the nerves, the scared feeling went away, wiped from your mind. You still felt it but not as strongly, as if only a hint of it was still in your mind.  
“Now come on. I have a shirt now so we can go out shopping. And don’t worry I’ll dispose of the body before we leave so you don’t have to worry your pretty little head about any of this.” Paul said as he kissed you, blood still all over his mouth, as he pulled away looking at you as he kissed you again, fully, and despite everything moaned, his lips moving from your lips to your neck, leaving smear marks of the blood over your face and neck.  
And pulled away from you just as quickly as if he hadn’t just kissed you. “Come on, I need to clean off my face, make myself look presentable, while you get ready.” He said as he pushed you back in the direction of your bedroom, and spun you around, smacking your ass, as you blinked and almost feeling like you were in a trance as you walked back to your bedroom to get ready to leave.


	12. Chapter 12

You and Paul walked through the automatic doors of the mall, as you tried to move your arm away from his hold, as you felt it tighten around you further.  
“Sweetheart if we are going to have a productive time, it means that you aren’t going to fit me the entire time. So relax.” He said as the pressure he had on your arm lessened as you both started to walk around the mall.  
Going from store to store getting a variety of clothes, as your stomach rumbled at some point, as you felt Paul pull you in a certain direction, thinking you were going to be going to another store.  
But then your nose picked up the scent of the food court, as he placed his arm around your waist.  
“Don’t want my human to go hungry.” he said, as he kissed the side of your face, as you walked around the food court and got a table, pulling a chair out for you. And he started to walk off towards one of the food establishments.  
“Wait, I should go with you--” You said as Paul smiled and pointed towards his head.  
Oh right. He’s been in your head, so apparently knows what you want. But now, would he know what you wanted to eat? You thought, as you were curious about it.  
5 minutes later and he came back with a tray of food, and pushed it towards you.  
French fries, onion rings, ranch dressing, and two big drinks.  
“Holy shit you were telling the truth.” You said, as you went to take a french fry as Paul smiled.  
“Just cause i’m a demon doesn’t mean I would lie to you y/n.” He said, as he went to grab a couple of french fries and pop them in his mouth.  
“You eat? How does that even work?” You asked quietly as he took a sip of his drink.  
“Yes I can eat. I can’t tell you how much I have missed food.” he said, as he took an onion ring and dipped it in the ranch.  
You tilted your head at that, or well this side of him, as he smiled at you.  
“What?” he asked, as you shook your head and took a sip of your drink.  
“Just surprised. You seem to have many sides to you that’s all.” you said, as you looked down at the collection of bags that were sitting at your feet.  
“What? Surprised I can be so nice y/n? I can be a gentleman, when I want to be.” He said, as he went to take another french fry.  
“Listen, I’ve been thinking, since I’m going to be stuck with you and all. You already know alot about me. But I wanna know more about you.” You stated as you watched him take in your statement, as something crossed his eyes that you couldn’t place.  
“Fine. I'll tell you stuff about me. But your probably going to need alcohol. Actually to be quite honest I’m probably going to need the alcohol more.” he said, as he sighed, grabbing an entire handful of fries, as you smiled.  
So he was a stress eater? Interesting. You thought, as you both continued sitting at that table sharing the tray of onion rings and fries until they were completely demolished.  
\---  
One trip to the liquor store and then you found yourself sitting on your bed opposite Paul sitting in the dark with the biggest container of whiskey that you could have found and two glasses.  
Paul opened up the bottle and poured some into each glass, as he passed one to you.  
“I already know what your assuming. That i’ve always been a demon but demons all demons start out as humans at one point. And either get changed into one for the sins that they committed while living or you get changed when you offer your soul to the darkness.” Paul explained, as he swirled the brow liquid in his glass before taking a sip.  
“So how did it happen for you?” you asked, as he looked at you.  
“The latter. I went into dark magic on the idea that I could bring my dead wife back who had died in childbirth. Didn’t know exactly who I was praying to, making sacrifices to but I didn’t care. I just wanted her back.” Paul said, as he took another sip, as he smiled.  
“Didn’t know that in the process that I had already given my soul over to the darkness, to Gene basically. He had promised to bring her back, just that before he could that I would have to give him a certain amount of sacrifices. At that point, I realized that it was a dead-end and that he wasn’t going to give me back my wife and just wanted souls. And in retaliation for it he killed me for not going through with my end of the deal. And then I came back as a demon, with no other option but to go along with his deal then. Making me harvest soul after soul as more and more of my humanity slipped away.” Paul said, as he unscrewed the cap to the bottle and refilled his glass, as he then did so for you.  
“But that’s old history. I’ve come to terms with who I am now. Right now I’m pissed off with how I was brought back though.” He said, as you furrowed your brows in confusion at this.  
“But you wanted to be brought back and you're here now.” You stated, as Paul gripped the glass as it made a sound like it was just about to crack under his grip.  
“Yes but with you going through with it under duress has consequences. Gene forced you to do it. Which means that my deal with him was revived when I came back into my body. So I’m basically his whenever he calls to get souls.” Paul explained, as he sighed.  
“So the others, Peter and Ace, were they under the same deal?” You asked, curious.  
“They’ve been with him alongside him for so long. At this point even if they had been under the same deal they’ve worked it off by now. Now they just like to stick around with him. But I want to let you know y/n, my intentions were to persuade you to agree to the ritual but never to force you to do it y/n. Know that.” Paul said, as he took another sip.  
“You look like her, exactly like her, it's uncanny.” he said, as you looked at him, as he was smiling, getting up from the bed and out your bedroom, as you heard him rooting through your living room and coming back in with a small box.  
The box he had tried to get you to open right before Gene came into the house.  
“You think I’m crazy. But this was actually hers. She used to for good energy, at least that’s what she told me.” Paul said, as he opened the box and took out the bracelet and put it on your wrist.  
“Your wife is an ancestor of mine?” You asked, as you started to feel the alcohol take effect, as you head started feeling light.  
“Yeah, I mean how else would the game that I was trapped in be kept in this house then?” Paul asked rhetorically, as he took your glass from you.  
“I think you’ve had enough. That mixed with all the junk food would not be good coming back up again.” he said, as he took both glasses and the big bottle of whiskey away from you, as you laid back against the pillows, hearing the clink of the glasses being put in the sink. And then Paul laying down on the bed next to you.  
“So now you know a little more about me.” He said, as you turned to look at him.  
“Yeah, not what I was expecting.” You said, as he lifted your hand in his to kiss your knuckles.  
“Sweetheart I’m full of surprises.” he said, as you nodded, closing your eyes, hearing him hum something under his breath.  
Something that seemed familiar, as if it was on the tip of your tongue what that tune was, as you fell asleep, almost immediately as if someone flipped a switch, as Paul laid next to you watching you sleep, pulling you closer to him, as he groaned.  
“Damnit.” he said aloud as he got out of the warm bed, and went to your backyard, and walking towards the shed that was in the back that held gardening tools that you hadn’t touched in years. He opened the shed and saw the body that he had been feeding on hours ago, and grabbed a shovel, and started digging a hole into the dirt.  
After digging about 6ft deep, he threw the body in, and covered it up with dirt before going back inside.  
He looked over at your sleeping form in the bed, wanting to join you again, but he was covered in dead body gunk and dirt. So he went over to the bags of clothes fishing out a pair of boxers, as he walked to the bathroom to take a shower. Quickly stripping himself of his shirt and jeans, and turning on the water, and stepping in.  
He was enjoying the feeling of warm water washing over him that he didn’t notice anything until you were pulling the shower curtain open, as he noticed that you were completely naked.  
“I thought you left. I woke up when I heard the backdoor close and then the shower turned on. I really thought you left me.” You said, as if you were confused.  
Paul sighed, as he watched you slip into the shower, as he wrapped his arms around you pulling you against his hard body.  
“Paul…” you said simply, as you relaxed into his embrace, as he held onto you gently, as the warm water washed over you. He kissed your neck and your shoulders, grinding into your ass.  
“You’re so hard.” you moaned, as you moved your ass against him intimately.  
“You make me that way. All I have to do is think of you.” he said, as he continued kissing your skin.  
“Me too. All I have to do is think of you to want you. I always want you now.” You said, laying your head against his chest as he worked you to a fever pitch by kissing your neck. He sucked at your skin while simultaneously grinding his erection into your backside.  
“I want you.” you said, as you ground yourself right back against him.  
“Bend over.” he said authoritatively, as he ran his hands down the front of your body, cupping your breasts before continuing downwards.  
You did as he told you, and bent down, wiggling your ass in the air in a blatant invitation. He slapped your ass softly, making you moan in appreciation before stroking his length up and down against you.  
“Please.” You begged, as he pressed a kiss to your neck before slipping inside of you. You moaned and thrusted back trying to take him faster, as he hummed against you neck in response.  
“Oh that’s my girl” he said encouragingly, as he thrusted into you more.  
"Please. Go fast. I need it fast." you begged. Knowing they had all night to go slow with you he thrust in all the way to the hilt before pulling almost all the way out and plunging back in. He had his hands on your ass as he fucked you hard from behind. You moaned continuously, and even started screaming when you were nearing the edge. He felt his balls tighten and his release shot up from his scrotum. He reached around you and started rubbing your clit. His efforts paid off and you climaxed around him causing him to cum inside you.  
" Oh fuck. That was so good." he moaned as he spilled himself inside your womb. He let the now cooler water rain down on them for a moment before he pulled out of you and wrapped his arms around you.  
“That was fantastic.” you said as you leaned against him, not too sure of your own sense of balance after that. He reached around you to turn off the water, as you kissed his neck.  
“I’m about ready for bed.” you said, as you took his hand in yours, forgetting the towels, as you both went back to bed, as you lazily kissed each other, until you succumbed to sleep wrapped around him in your sleep.  
“God y/n I can’t get enough of you. God, I think I love you.” He admitted, at your sleep form, as he kissed the top of your head as you moved in your sleep, getting closer to him. He wrapped his arm around you,a genuine smile on his face.


	13. Chapter 13

You woke up the next morning, feeling warm and happy. You opened your eyes and felt his lips on your neck.  
“Good morning y/n.” he said as you felt him pull away from you. And off the bed, as you felt the covers move, as the cool air hit you, making you move more back into the warmth of them.  
“Ah ah ah, your getting up.” he said, as you felt his hands land on your ankles, as he pulled you, as you gasped at the sudden movement, as you found yourself now at the foot of the bed, Paul’s form hovering of yours with a big smile on his face.  
“Although I would like to stay in bed all day, I think that would end very badly.” he said, as you raised a brow.  
“Oh so you mean that we’ve finally crossed that point to where we aren’t just going to hump each other like rabbits now?” you asked rhetorically, as you stood up intent on grabbing something to cover yourself up with because one, you were still naked from the night before and two, it was always cold in your house in the mornings.  
You went to your closet to just put on a long sleeve sweatshirt and grabbed at the first thing that you saw, taking it off the hanger, and then finally noticed that it was one of Paul’s shirts that you bought the day before.  
Paul took it out of your hands, and in another second handed it back to you unbuttoned, as you put it on as you stared your reflection in the mirror. Paul standing behind you.  
“Knew you would look good in my clothes. But now that you're at least decently covered, you're helping me with breakfast.” he said, as he spun you around as you laughed.  
\---  
After eating breakfast, you were rooting through your closet to get ready for work. After grabbing a black t-shirt and jeans you turned around and saw Paul laying on your bed. And he didn’t look happy.  
“What? I have to go to work. I have clients scheduled for today. It’s what keeps me able to pay the rent on this house.” You said, as you slipped the tshirt over your head. And turned around to face the mirror to fix your hair, brushing your fingers through it.  
You turned around and saw Paul putting on the shirt of his that you had been wearing all morning, as you tilted your head at him.  
“Where are you going?” You asked, as you grabbed your car keys, as you slipped on your black vans headed towards the door.  
“Out until you come back.” Paul stated as you turned to look at him, and you sighed.  
And the wall is up. You thought, as you felt Paul’s eyes on you, as you opened the front door and gasped, trying to step back, but your back hit into Paul’s chest, as you felt rumbling from his chest, as if he was growling, as he moved you to stand behind him.  
“Hey, thought we would come by check to see how you were doing?” Ace said, as he looked at Paul, as Peter was smiling at you. And not in the friendly way, as if he was thinking about eating you.  
“Thought you would want to come out and hang with us for a bit while y/n goes to work.” Peter said, as you narrowed your eyes.  
How the hell did they know about my work schedule? You thought, as Paul took a couple steps towards them, creating more space between you and them.  
“Sure why not. As long as Gene isn’t tagging along.” Paul said, as he turned to look back at you.  
“I’ll be back when you're done at work.” he said as he went to kiss the side of your face, as you stood on your front steps, watching them walk away, stunned and confused.  
What the hell were they going to do? Hangout? What do demons do when they hangout? You thought as you tried to push that thought away not wanting to think too deeply at that last thought because it was probably stuff you didn’t even want to know about. You twirled your keys absentmindedly, as you walked down your steps and to your car, hoping that getting back to work would keep your mind off everything.  
\--  
“So we saw that little kiss. Starting to build an actual connection with the one that agreed to the ritual now?” Ace asked, as Paul felt his eyes on him, as he tried to keep a straight face.  
“Of course he is. We both know how he works tries to get the one that opens up the ouija board and forgets to say goodbye to agree to it by getting them through sex. It works out for a bit until you start getting feelings for them, right Paulie?” Peter said, cynically as Paul noticed what they were walking towards, a bar.  
“There's either two ways to work the humans, scare the hell out of them, or twist them to your own desires. You know that as much as we do Pete.” Ace said as he rolled his eyes and wrapped his arm around Paul’s shoulders.  
“Plus look at it in a positive way, we have our buddy back now. To wreak havoc on the world together.” Ace said, as Peter opened the door to the bar, as they all entered.  
And Paul saw that bar was completely void of anyone. Not just that it was still morning. Paul looked at Ace and Peter as they went around the side where the bartender would be and grabbed bottles on bottles and shot glass after shot glass.  
“You emptied out the bar?” Paul asked rhetorically, as Peter simply smiled.  
“What? Didn’t wanna pay for drinks and we got a few souls out of it.” Peter said simply with a shrug of his shoulders, as he kicked over the body of the bartender that so happened to be the one that was in the way of their plans to get drunk in the morning.  
“Here, maybe this’ll loosen you up back to your normal ways..” Ace said, as he put shot glasses down and started pouring the alcohol.  
“Yeah maybe we get you drunk enough we can have fun like we used to before you got put in that board game.” Peter said, as he sat next to Paul and took one of the shot glasses and downed it, as Paul did the same.  
“So, you really like y/n. And not in a blood supply kinda way?” Ace said, as Paul sighed, as he looked over at Peter, not really wanting to answer because he knew that he was going to be judged by his old friend. Because Peter was like most demons, focused on only getting what he wanted out of humans, their blood and souls. While Ace was more lenient when it came to humans, only really focusing on that aspect of what humans could give him when he needed it really.   
Probably because Ace still had some humanity left in him, or can still remember what it was like to be human, just like Paul.  
“I don’t know. At first I just thought about ways I could persuade her into saying yes to do the ritual. Scaring her wasn’t doing it so the other option was it. Plus I mean I had been in that board game for so long, a guy gets kinda pent up you know. Just thought that it was a plus you know. Get back to my full form and get some sex out of it then kill her then leave. But now, I don’t know, I promised to protect her. And we’ve found that we have gotten to know each other. She’s nice.” Paul said as he took another shot, as Ace smiled.  
“Oh you don’t just like her do you? You are getting feelings for her?!” Ace said, as Peter snorted next to Paul, as Ace and Paul both looked at him.  
“What? Really feelings? Paul, humans are only good for two things, their blood supply when we get hungry and then you harvest them of their souls. That’s it. Getting feelings for them isn’t going to do any of us any good.” Peter said, as he took a shot, as Ace rolled his eyes.  
“Humans aren’t all that bad. They can be really interesting, depending on the human.” Ace said, as he continued pouring the shots.  
\--  
You were working on client after client, intent on having your brain wiped of any of the thoughts that had been running through your head from before. The little conversations with clients that were just small talk as you worked on their hair.  
Once you brushed through the client’s hair, you took off the black cape and walked them over to the receptionist’s desk to deal with payment, and to get the tip.  
As you walked back to your station to clean up all the hair that was on the floor, taking your time with it because it was your last client of the day.   
Throwing the hair into the trash and going to put your apron away that had pockets to hold styling tools in them when you saw the receptionist waving you over.  
“You have a walk-in request. Asked for you.” she said, as you tied your apron back on sighing, hoping that it was just a quick trim and not a color and cut cause you wanted to be out as quickly as possible.  
You walked over to your station, which consisted of two chairs, walking up and seeing from behind that it was a man.  
“Hello, the receptionist said that you requested me.” You said as you walked up and felt the hair on the back of your neck raise, as you looked in the mirror as you tried to maintain your composure.  
“Yes, well I’ve heard such great things about your work. Thought I would stop by to get a trim and have a little chat with you.`` Gene said as he smiled at you through the reflection of the mirror.  
“Since this is the only time that you would be away from Paul. Did he tell you his story about how he came to be who he is? Because that’s only one side of a three sided story. Paul’s, mine and his dearly departed wife’s” Gene said as his smile got wider at you.


	14. Chapter 14

You got back from your job in a daze. After your encounter with Gene, you all but practically ran out of the salon, intent on getting home and telling Paul.  
You got home and saw that the house was doused in darkness.  
So he’s not home great. You thought as you went inside, locking the door behind you, even though now that wouldn’t stop any of them from coming in. And the sage that you had bought in bulk wasn’t going to help anymore.  
You put your bag on the hook, and slipped off your shoes, finally feeling the extent of the stress hit you. You hurt everywhere.  
You went into the bathroom, starting the hot water to take a bath instead. Stripped yourself of your clothes and threw in some bath salts that were supposed to make you calmer, and tonight was going to be the test of them.  
Cause you felt your nonexistent anxiety before Paul showed up wouldn’t stop rearing its ugly head.  
You took a breathe, as you stepped into the bath, sighing as the warm water went straight to your aching muscles.  
You were submerging your head under the water, as you looked up in the water, used to just seeing the ceiling of the shower. But you saw a figure standing next to the bathtub.   
You came up with a gasp, your mind only assuming that it was Gene.   
“Hey y/n,” Paul said as he smiled at you from where he was standing at the side of the tub as you sighed in relief as you smacked his leg with your wet hand.  
“Don’t do that you scared me! I thought you were Gene.” You said, as you looked up at him, and saw a dark stain on the front of his shirt, then looked at his face, that seemed unmarred, except for the slight smudge of blood over his lips.  
“What the hell happened?” You asked as he licked his lips and then looked down at his shirt.  
“Oh, that’s not mine. But good news, I found a blood bank nearby. So no more snatching people off the street.” He slurred, as he smiled proudly as if that little detail was supposed to make you feel better.  
He started taking off his shirt and toed off his shoes as he undid the button and zipper of his jeans, pulling them down, and then bending down to take them off all the way, and in the process loosing his balance, as he laughed.  
“Your drunk. Great.” You said, as you submerged yourself again in the water and popped back up, just as his hand was on your shoulder.  
“Care to share?” he asked, as you moved up as he joined you in the bath, as he pulled you back against his chest.  
“So all you did was drink, and well drink.” You said, as you turned your face to look at him, as he turned you away to have your head looking straight away as you heard him opening a bottle.  
“Yes, what did you expect me to do with them?” he asked as you felt his hands start working the shampoo through your hair, as you fought the urge to close your eyes at his fingers massaging your scalp.  
“I don’t know, not come back for one, and to destroy things like you said you would.” You said as Paul chuckled.  
“Why wouldn’t I come back? I like being here with you. Which makes me very early decisions that I was making without knowing you kinda not going to happen.” Paul said as you turned your face to look at him.  
“What? I thought the whole destroying the world and creating chaos was the whole point of getting out and being well you again,” you said, not understanding, as you turned around in the bath fully to look at him.  
And he had a smile on his face, as he caressed your face.  
“I guess you aren’t getting it. Silly human, why would I want to destroy a place where you are? When I love you.” He said as you looked at him.  
Thinking that in just a second he would say something else to make that last statement false. Because you didn’t think he could even express that since he was a demon.  
He stayed silent, as you processed this new information. As his hand was still on your face, looking into your eyes, as his other hand came up to the other side of your face.  
“I’m serious y/n. I love you. I didn’t think that this would happen but I love you. I’m going to stay with you, protect you from anything. I promised you that.” He said as you smiled.  
“Silly demon, I’m glad you stayed. Because I love you too.” You said as you kissed him, as your hands when to his dark hair, as his hands left your face and went to your sides, fingertips moving up and down your sides, as you pulled away from the kiss, as you started laughing.  
“Stop tickling me,” you said, as he looked at you with a smile, continuing the sensation across your skin, as you continued laughing.  
“Why? I like hearing you laugh,” he said, as he stopped, as he pulled you to him, his head resting against your neck kissing it.  
“You know I think by now we would be having sex.” You admitted as you leaned into the embrace.  
“Sometimes you don’t need to.” Paul murmured, as you smiled, trailing your fingers, up and down his arms, content to just stay in the bath like this.  
Until the shampoo that had been in your hair, finally got in your eyes that it.  
“Damnit!” You shouted, as you pulled out of the embrace, as you went to try and splash water in your eyes, as Paul started laughing.  
“Hey, don’t laugh or I’ll put soap in your eyes.” You said as you turned back and saw a look on his face.  
“Oh really? You think you’re going to be able to get me in the eye?” he challenged, as you narrowed your eyes.  
“I think I have great aim, so yes.” You said as you gathered some of the suds that were in the bath, flinging some at him, right in the face.  
You moved to the opposite side of the bathtub, as you watched him wipe the soap suds from his face, as he narrowed his eyes at you, as you smiled.  
“Told you I had good aim.” You said, as you felt his hands go around your ankles, not giving you any time to react, as you were pulled to him, and your face was covered in suds, as he smashed them into your face, as he laughed, helping you get the suds off your face.  
Then you felt his lips against your ankle since he was still holding you by your ankles in one hand, moving your legs to rest against his shoulders.  
The playful atmosphere changed in an instant, as you looked back at him, as he continued kissing up to your leg, as your breathing changed, getting shallower.   
Paul stopped his descent as he looked at you.  
“I think we are both in agreement. We should get out of this tub before the water gets too cold,” he said, as he moved your legs to wrap around his waist, as he got up with you wrapped around him.  
\--  
You laid wrapped around Paul, blankets surrounding you on your bed.  
“You know Gene showed up at my work today.” You said, wanting to let him know, as you looked at him, as his peaceful face turned to anger.  
“He didn’t do anything. But it freaked me out. He knew that you told me about your past. Said that I needed to get the whole story.” You said as he pulled you closer to him.  
“He’s not going to do anything to you. I won’t let him. I promise.” He said, as he tilted your head to look up at him, as he kissed you gently.


	15. Chapter 15

Waking up the next morning smelling coffee, getting up from the bed and not seeing Paul anywhere. You went to check the rest of the rooms in the house. He was nowhere to be found. Anxiety started to settle in, as you made a cup of coffee.  
You went to check your messages on your phone and looked at the date. And did a double-take at what you saw. It was a week later since Paul confessed his feelings to you. It couldn’t be a week later? Could it? You thought, as you started feeling lightheaded, as you turned around and were faced with Peter, with a smile on his face.  
“We’ve been following you y/n, watching where you’ve been going. Gene has some questions.” He said, as he put a bag over your head, casting you in darkness.  
\--  
You had tried to listen to the noises that surrounded you, but the claustrophobia soon made you pass out.  
The bag was taken off your face, as you were in that same basement-like looking room from before.   
Gene, Ace, and Peter were in the room, but Paul wasn’t.  
“Where is Paul?” You asked, getting worried, as Gene looked at you.

“He’s not here right now. Had him go off for me and actually work since you’ve been a distract to him as of recently. He’s off doing what he needs to do, which is harvesting souls for me to pay off his debt to me. Enough talking about Paul though, I have some questions for you.” He said, as he looked into your eyes, almost as if he was seeing something passed your eyes.  
“I’ve had them following you since you released Paul. Didn’t want you running off. You’ve stayed to your usual schedule until last week. Because last week you stopped going to your job. Last week you got into a huge fight with Paul and he left, coming to me.” Gene explained, as you looked at him confused.  
“I don’t have any memory of this. I got up and my coffee maker was going and Paul wasn’t at my house. The only reason why I knew that a week had passed was when I saw that date for today. I have no memory of last week whatsoever.” You said, trying to be convincing even though all of this confused the hell out of you.  
How do you not have any memory of last week at all? You thought, as you noticed that there were things on the ground around you connected to a line of ash.

You looked around you and saw that all the objects were around you, and the line was in a circle around you, as you looked up at Gene.  
“What are you going to do to me?” You asked as he just smiled, as you looked at Ace, who gave you a sympathetic look, like he felt bad for you.  
“I had an idea for why this all happened and thought I would just go with my gut, and just perform the ritual.” Gene said as he lit a match and lit the four bowls that were around you, connected with the ash, as they all seemed to flame up at the same time.  
Then you noticed something wrapped up next to you, and it looked like a body. You screeched, as Gene and Peter just smiled at your reaction.  
“It’s always nice to see humans' reactions to our normal ways. Puts things into perspective.” Peter said, as the door opened to reveal Paul, as he looked across the room at you tied to a chair, ceremonial bowls full of god knows what in them on fire, a dead and possibly decomposing body next to you.  
“I knew you were up to something when you finally forced me into harvesting souls last week. But I didn’t think about this.” Paul said, as he looked at you, but there wasn’t that same loving look in his eyes. Which made you think what you could have possibly said to him to make him leave, just after he confessed his feelings for you.  
“Been following her after your little blow out with her. She’s been going off her schedule. So I had an idea.” Gene said, as Paul looked at the items and the body on the ground and then back at Gene as Gene smiled as he said the words “Exire Daemonem Voco".  
Paul tried to get to the circle that you were in as Gene simply looked at him, and Paul stopped in his tracks, as you started convulsing in the chair, a dark mass of smoke coming from you and into the body that was on the ground.  
The body moved, the sheet uncovering it, as a woman emerged, wearing very dated clothing, what looked to be from a couple hundred years ago.  
And looked exactly like you.   
You wanted to move, wanted to leave. Wanted to run like hell.  
She got up brushing herself off, as she looked at your wrist taking the bracelet off.  
“This is mine thank you.” She said, as she put it on her wrist, looking at you the entire time.  
Then turning to look at Paul, who was still frozen in place.  
“Nice to see you Paul. Guess time in that board did you good just like it did me in that bracelet.” She said, as she turned to Gene, smiling.  
“Knew you would get me out!” She said, as she went to hug and kiss him, as you looked at Paul, who looked surprised, or at least would have if he wasn’t frozen.  
“Of course I would. I told you that before you died, that I had a plan.” Gene said, as he wrapped his arm around her shoulders, as she moved to stand at his side, eyes going from y/eyecolor to that inky blackness.  
“You're a demon!” you shouted, as she laughed.   
“Of course, you didn’t think Paul was the only one practice the dark arts? I sold myself happily to Gene.” she said, as she moved to look at Paul.  
“And yes that wasn’t your baby, that was Gene’s sadly that passed. Thought you should know, even though you had no clue stupid man.” She said to Paul as she smiled sadistically at him.  
“He never thought that the child wasn’t his. Didn’t believe what I told him about doing all those fascinating spells, until I told him that I wanted to get pregnant and he thought we did a fertility spell, little did he know that I was selling my soul to Gene and a little more than that.” She continued, as she looked from Paul, and started walking over to you.  
“You know all about that though, selling yourself to a demon. Even if you didn’t have it planned you fell for him.” She said as she looked you up and down.  
“Which was the plan. Why Gene had the board stay in that house, as you were my ancestors it would all work out. You get him out of the board and fall in love with him. But I didn’t think it would happen this fast.” She said as she came closer to you, placing a hand on you, as you flinched.  
As she smiled down at you, those black eyes bore into your soul.  
“Your pregnant y/n with Paul’s baby.” She said as she clapped her hands together.  
“I knew my plan even centuries ago would come to fruition one day. I told you!” She shouted excitedly as she went back and looked at Gene as he snapped his fingers and they were all gone, and you were put back into your house, along with Paul.  
You both sitting opposite each other at the kitchen table, finally able to move your limbs, but you felt like you were stuck to that chair, as you stared at Paul. Both of you are absolutely speechless.


	16. Chapter 16

You looked across the table at Paul, still trying to process this new information. Was she lying to you? And if she was, what would that do to benefit you? Unless she was doing it to put a wedge between you and Paul because maybe she still wanted to be with Paul? You thought, as you got up from the table and went to the fridge grabbing a beer and opening it, as you felt Paul suddenly standing behind you and grabbing the beer from you.  
“You can’t be drinking that,” he said simply, as you turned around.  
“So she wasn’t lying.” you said quietly as you looked up at him, as you looked at him confused.  
“And you didn’t tell me. I assumed that since you were a demon…” You said trailing off as you were thinking, as you looked back up at him.  
“Did you know about her plan? Were you in on this? To get me pregnant with…” You trailed off not even wanting to say it, as you went to hit him, as he caught your hand, as you looked at his face and he looked hurt.  
“You really think I would plan that. I’m a demon that destroys towns, not impregnate women. And her whole plan I never knew about. I didn’t know until today that she was into black magic and sold her soul willingly to Gene or that she was pregnant with his demon-child. All this is new information for me to alright!” He shouted as he let go of your hand as he put the beer up to his lips and drank it.  
“So you didn’t know at all? You didn’t know that you could even do that…” You said, as Paul sighed.  
“No, I didn’t.” he said seriously, as he looked down at you.  
“It didn’t click for me until I walked into the basement. I hadn’t seen you in a week since the fight. But when I walked in, I could smell you. You smelled slightly different but I just couldn’t put my finger on why.” Paul explained, as you opened the fridge again, as you saw him stiffen in your peripheral vision.  
“Don’t worry, getting a water and pretending it’s vodka.” You said, as you grabbed for a water bottle.  
“Care to explain the fight? Cause i have no memory of it at all.” You said, as you went to walk into your bedroom, as Paul followed, both of you sitting on the bouncy mattress.  
“You wouldn’t, I mean now that I knew that she was possessing you during the fight. I should have never given you that bracelet. I didn’t know that was her key to coming back at all.” Paul said, as he sipped at his beer, thinking.  
“We both said things, and after my confession to you and everything.” Paul said simply, as you smiled.  
“Oh yes the three dreaded words, I love you.” You said, as you smiled as you continued. “What, like you saying you said it only because you were drunk?” You said, as you saw the look on his face that was confirmation enough.  
“Seriously? She made me say that. I’m sorry.” You said, as you went to touch his shoulder, as he sipped at the beer.

“Well now that I know that that wasn’t you. Makes me feel a little better. But also makes me feel kinda stupid. I should’ve known that last week that wasn’t you.” Paul said, as you shook your head, as you noticed his was staring at your stomach.  
“I have an idea, but I’m going to need some help. I’m going to go. You stay here.” He said as he got up off the bed, as you shook your head.  
“Nope last time that happened I got kidnapped AGAIN. I’m going with you.” You said, as he sighed, looking at you.  
“Fine, plus there's no use in arguing with you. You seem to be my vulnerability.” He said, as you rolled your eyes.  
“Uh huh. So what’s this plan of yours?” you asked, as he looked at you as he grabbed the keys that were in your hands.  
“You’ll find out when we get there.” He said, as he unlocked your car, and hopped into the driver's seat, as you went into the passenger side, as you looked at him.  
“Have you ever driven a car before?” you asked, realizing that him taking the keys might not be the best idea.  
“I’m centuries old. And yes I’ve driven a car before.” He scoffed as you laughed, as he started the car.  
\--  
He parked the car outside a nice neighborhood, as he got out and opened the door for you, as you both walked up to the door, as it opened.  
Revealing Ace.  
“Oh no, I’m not going anywhere near him after what happened.”You said as you moved to walk off the property.  
“He’s the benedict arnold of the group y/n. Not really loyal to Gene exactly.” Paul said as you turned around.  
“Hell no I’m not! Everytime I would disobey in the beginning he would add more years. It just so happens that I got through with my deal with him a couple of days ago. He just didn’t know. I’ve been staying around since you popped back up.” He said to Paul.  
“I would rather stay loyal to a good friend than a tyrant anyday.” Ace said, as he opened the door further, allowing the both of you to come into his home  
“Plus after the stunt that he pulled yesterday, I knew that I was done. And I’m sorry about the situation you're in y/n.” He said to you, as he looked at you with sympathy.  
“Paul didn’t know, if he had, you realized he would’ve gloved up for sure.” He said with a slight smile, as Paul rolled his eyes.  
“About that. We need your help. A little sanctified blood.” he said, as Ace’s eyes went wide.  
“You mean...um Yeah I could get some for you. I still have my connections.” Ace said, as he looked at Paul and then at you, but specifically your stomach, as he went to grab his phone and make some calls.  
“What if he catches wind that you're trying to work against him?” You asked, as Ace pulled the phone away from his mouth.  
“Got friends that into voodoo, made a specific blend so his ass can’t come into my house. I don’t like it when people barge into my personal space.” Ace said as he walked to a cabinet and grabbed out a big container of what was the blend of herbs that he was talking about, setting it on a table. As he was talking to whomever on the phone and grabbing a big ziploc bag of the stuff and funnel.  
“Go nuts y/n. But make sure he doesn’t touch it.” Ace said as he passed everything to you, as you started filling up the bag with the herbs mixture, as Paul went to listen to Ace on the phone.  
“Yes I need some sanctified blood. How much? Uh…” he said as he pulled the phone away, as he looked at Paul.  
“A couple bags full. You never know.” he said, as Ace looked at him.  
“But if it's just…” Ace said as everything was coming clear as he smiled, shaking his head.  
“Never pegged that for you.” he said as he turned back to the person on the phone.  
“Yes a couple bags full. Yes I know, it’s a lot but if you could get it to me by tomorrow that would be great, or even this evening. I’ll be sure to give you a huge tip if you could make it this evening.” Ace said, a big smile on his face as he looked at Paul.  
\--  
You pulled the car up to your house, Paul in the passenger seat, as he had the cooler full of blood sitting in his lap.  
“You never explained to me why you needed the blood.” You said, as he smiled.  
“It’s my insurance that what I think her plan boils down to doesn’t happen.” He said, as he took the car keys out of the ignition and so he could unlock the front door to your house. You carried in the takeout bag in one hand and the ziplock container of herbs that you got from Ace in the other hand.  
“Yes Mr. cryptic, like that’s a good explanation.” You said as you walked into the house, as he was setting the containers of blood in the freezer.  
“Eat your carbs y/n, I’ll explain it to you after you eat.” he said, as you sat at the table, as he put on the gloves that you used to wash dishes with to grab the ziplock container of herbs and put it on the kitchen counter.  
“Never thought I would like him. But Ace is nice.” You said, as you started taking the takeout container from the bag.  
Paul sighed, as he sat down next to you, taking a portion of the food from the containers.  
“I’m starting to like all these carbs.” Paul said, as he put a portion of noodles on his plate as you looked at him, taking a bite of the food.  
“See I ate, now tell me what the blood is for.” You said, as you smiled, as Paul started piling up noodles on his fork to take a bite.  
“The blood is my insurance policy. I wanna make sure that baby of ours is fully human. I don’t want to lose you in the process and I don’t want them taking the baby. I’m thinking their plan was to take the baby after you had it. A half-human half-demon child can be really powerful. And I want to be human again. Because what’s the point of being immortal when the one person that you want to be with is human. I don’t want to see you pass on while I stay immortal, y/n. I was telling you the truth that I love you. And I love this baby and I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure that you both come out of this alive.” He said, as you tried to take in all the information.  
“You want to be human, and make sure that the baby is fully human.” you said as Paul nodded.  
“And the blood will help with that?” You asked, as Paul nodded.  
“Only thing that will transition me and the baby back into humans. That’s why I asked for more blood bags for myself. One would probably be due for the baby but I have no idea how much it would take to change me.” Paul said as you sat wide-eyed.  
“Can I ask one thing of you?” You said as he smiled, taking your hands in his.  
“Anything, within reason.” he said, as you took a breath.  
“Can this wait, at least for you until this gets all taken care of. I know I’m asking you to stay as you are, it's just--” You said, as he squeezed your hands.  
“I know. Being a demon comes with the perks of having powers. And I get it. Ace and I have a plan. We just have to try and convince Peter to come on board. It’s going to take all of us to get those two eliminated as an issue.” Paul said, as he went back to eating his plate of noodles, as you slowly picked at yours, overcome with all this information to even be interested in eating.


	17. Chapter 17

I will be releasing my first book!

here's the google form to be able to vote on which fic or collection of them you would want to see be released in physical book form and ebook form!

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdPOpk1AJFW9JbNwyPvPVbFueOXs7lhTwp6VUB9NJzhGt_m1w/viewform?usp=pp_url&entry.1362650477=original+series+fiction+versions

it is open until 6/14/2020

and i will be doing a special announcement video the following day on my youtube channel through live stream where I count the votes live (plus patron votes that they added) to see which fic will be getting put into book form!

become a patron to be able to add extra votes onto the tally that could sway your choice: patreon.com/Jessywhisper


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